


The Trip

by ecrichard



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hospitals, Medicine, aunts, the holmes family - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-15 21:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 29,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecrichard/pseuds/ecrichard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is expecting a visit from his mother. For the first time in a long time John finally sees his friend excited. That is until tragedy strikes and John must help Sherlock through a difficult time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John had never seen him be excited about someone visiting since the day that strange vagrant brought a sack of eyeballs last April. For the last three days Sherlock had been straightening up the flat. Mrs. Hudson brought up a bucket filled with cleaning supplies that were promptly ignored for Sherlock's own concoction of scientifically perfected liquids that stripped every surface of dust as well as a thin layer of varnish.

Her train was to come in at 6:15 in the evening. John had taken the day off from the clinic to assist in any way that he could but he was swiftly told to stay out of the way.

"Are you sure that there is nothing I can do?" he asked.

Sherlock's eyebrows lowered. "I am fine. You may leave if sitting and leaving me to clean is not something you can't help but try to assist me with."

John put his hands up in surrender. "Oh I don't want to help. You just seemed rather overwhelmed."

Sherlock humphed. "Overwhelmed? You think that I am overwhelmed?" He stressed the last word as if his friend had just called him a ghost or a fairy princess.

"You still have to clean up the kitchen. She's getting in in four hours."

"Plenty of time," Sherlock said.

John sat back in his chair and grabbed the remote. "Don't mind me."

"Why should I?" Sherlock asked.

"It's not my mother coming in," he said. "From what Mycroft tells me about her she won't like beakers and toenails on the counter."

Sherlock shuffled slowly to the kitchen as to not let on that John's statement affected him. "Mycroft—" he began to say.

John took delight in riling up his flatmate. Mycroft had little to say about their mother and all of it was complimentary. As children Sherlock had long been the favorite of the two boys. Mycroft had been the straight-laced older son with the perfect grades and stretches of formal organized activities. Their father had flocked to the serious Mycroft and had largely ignored the younger and more inquisitive son.

It was their mother who had given Sherlock the most attention. A former teacher herself, she catered to his curious nature. They would take hikes that lasted for hours and come back with sketchbooks filled with drawings of unusual plants and animals that Sherlock had discovered on their journeys. Despite how private he appeared, John knew that he called her at least once a week to check in on her in her home in Manchester.

John was oddly thrilled to meet the woman that Sherlock spoke so little about but had shaped him into the strangely fascinating man before him. The scientist in him couldn't wait to observe her and see if all his flatmate's little ticks originated from the woman. And, more so, he couldn't wait to get all the nasty secrets from a woman who had spent more time with Sherlock than anyone on Earth. He hoped she brought pictures.

Back in the kitchen John heard the clattering of dishes in the sink and the smash of porcelain against the floor.

"You doing alright?" John shouted from the comfort of his chair.

"Yes," Sherlock shot back. "No need to check up on me like I'm a child."

"Dustbin's nearly full. Be careful not to cut yourself."

Sherlock grunted while John reveled in the pleasure of his friend's incompetence, as it was not a feeling he got to experience often.

Just as his program was about to begin, the news screen flashed across the screen.

They opened with an aerial view of a country-forested area. It was hard to see what the story was about as the camera struggled to focus on the disaster in the corner.

It was then the headline appeared on the bottom of the screen.

Train De-Railed in Bridestone.

John's heart sank as he turned the sound down on the report. He needed more information before he alerted Sherlock.

The somber blonde reporter spoke over shaky footage.

"We just received a report that this train was headed to London from Manchester. Arthur, we have been told that there are at least fifty confirmed deaths from this terrible accident and dozens of injured. Ambulances are slowly coming to the scene but it'll be some time before we know the final numbers."

The camera finally focused on the snowy ground that had been littered with gnarled metal and tiny specks of human life that lay dormant on the ground. Even from such a distance the magnitude of the wreckage was clear. The train was far off the tracks and had skidded at great speed. He knew the shape the survivors would be in after an accident like that.

He bit his tongue as badly as he wanted to tell Sherlock. With a trembling hand he turned off the television and began to rise. Just as he opened his mouth to speak his phone buzzed in his pocket.

Mycroft.

"Shit," he muttered.

It was at that moment that he knew Sherlock's heart was about to be broken.


	2. Chapter 2

John moved from the living room into his bedroom. He hoped that Sherlock hadn't noticed the emotional shift in the room but he figured he was so engrossed with cleaning that John's own actions were secondary.

"Mycroft, what is it?"

The Holmes brothers never spoke in anything but neutral tones. When John's aunt passed away last year they did nothing but nod and move on with their days. Sentiment and emotion was alien to them. That's why the waiver in Mycroft's voice took John by surprise.

"Is Sherlock there?"

John's heart pounded with anticipation. "I saw on the news. The train—"

"I should talk to him. Is he there?"

John could hear the struggle in Mycroft's voice as he forced the words out of his mouth. "He's working. It may be better if you let me talk to him."

He imagined Mycroft sitting in the expansive home he owned, all alone and struggling with news that he was too terrified to share. There was no one for him to talk to and there was no one that understood him well enough to provide comfort.

"Please John. Just—"

The clattering in the kitchen went mute and John lowered his voice in case Sherlock had decided to eavesdrop. "Tell me what happened."

He could hear the agony in Mycroft's voice. The words barely came out and they were thin and exhausted before they got through the receiver. "They found her."

"How do you mean? Is she injured?"

"No."

John knew what he was trying to say but he needed to hear it. He needed to tell Sherlock the whole story. Tales laced with vagueness would not suffice. "Was she killed?"

He hoped the bluntness would comfort Mycroft. John had never had to deal with either Holmes in a state other than complete emotional control.

Mycroft cleared his throat but the words came out caked in sorrow. "Yes."

John felt out of his body. He had dealt with death and the catastrophic effects his entire career. It never got any easier to look someone dead in the eye and tell them that someone they loved had passed away. He hated that brief moment of shock that devolved into crumpled devastation. Sometimes he was hugged, sometimes he was hit but often he was just stared at in complete disbelief. He was the angel of bad news and the man who had informed them that their life had been changed forever.

"Mycroft, I will tell him. You do what you need to do."

"I'll be over to later to begin arrangements with Sherlock. He'll want to be involved I imagine," Mycroft said.

"I'm sure. Please don't rush. Let me help you."

"That won't be necessary," Mycroft said. "But do watch Sherlock. He won't handle this well."

Shit, John thought. Sherlock didn't normally handle much well as it was. He was afraid of what an unhinged grieving flatmate would even be like. "Of course."

"I'll call before I come. Have your mobile, yes?"

"Yes. I will."

"Good," he muttered. "Thank you."

"Of cour—" but Mycroft hung up before John could finish his sentence.

He placed the phone back in his pocket and stood in the middle of his bedroom, desperate not to go out and speak to Sherlock. He had said the words dozens of times to children, parents, soldiers and friends but it never got any easier. Of all the people he'd ever had to break the news to, Sherlock was the one man that he didn't know how he'd react.

John steeled himself and took a deep breath. He would find out one way or another and perhaps it would provide some comfort to hear it from a friend. John quietly turned the doorknob and opened the door just a cracked to spy where Sherlock was in the flat. To his surprise he was standing just a foot from his bedroom door with a washcloth in one hand and a spray bottle of greenish liquid in the other.

"Was that Mycroft?"

John didn't look his friend in the eye. He wasn't ready to say the words yet. "Yes."

Sherlock cocked his head. "Why did he call? I haven't received any word from him. Why would he call you?"

It was an unusual amount of questions from a man who rarely doubted. John pointed towards the couches. "Sherlock, you better sit down."

Sherlock's body clenched. "What for?"

"Please. Just do it."

"John, if there is something you feel you should tell me just say it. Please do not speak to me like I am some patient at your clinic."

He sighed. "It's about your mother."

Sherlock nodded. "What about her?"

The two of them stood face to face and their height difference made telling him the news that much harder. John felt numb as he looked up at his friend whose face struggled to maintain composure. "I really would like to sit."

Sherlock's body tensed. "I will not. Tell me now or I will call Mycroft myself. Unbelievable the time it takes for—"

The words spilled out of his mouth without his control. Sherlock was mid-rant as John interrupted. "There was an accident. Her train derailed. She didn't survive."

Sherlock froze mid-gesture. His body was contorted to the side and his hands stayed locked in the air. All he did was turn his head just enough to look John in the eyes. "What?"

He couldn't help but start to tear up. "I'm so sorry."

Sherlock's faced scrunched. "No," he mumbled.

John went to comfort his friend but Sherlock pulled away. "Mycroft is going to come by later."

Sherlock was careful not to look up but John could see that his face had gone pale.

"You should sit," John said.

Sherlock shook his head.

"You're in shock. Sit."

"John. Leave me alone. Do you understand?" The words came out like daggers.

There was nothing he could do. John walked back to the living room and sat in the same chair he always sat in and grabbed a book. The pain he felt was unbearable and it hurt so much more to not be able to help.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock didn't go to his room. In fact he hardly moved from the spot where John told him the news. After almost ten minutes he set the bottle and cleaning cloth on the counter and went to his usual chair in the living area.

John could see the shock written all over his face. He hadn't processed the information or he was woefully choosing to deny what he had just been told. Sherlock pulled his knees close to his chest and grabbed his phone from the table beside him. Silently he clicked away without once looking up.

"Do you want to talk?" John asked.

Sherlock ignored him.

He prayed for Mycroft to come around, or at the very least Mrs. Hudson. Anyone else may be able to penetrate his mind and get him to speak.

"Would you like some tellie? Or I can make tea."

Again he was ignored.

It felt selfish but he was angry that Sherlock had blown him off so quickly. It was John's job to know how to react to the after-effects of death and, if his friend would let him in, he could help. But instead he sat and watched as Sherlock dove deeper inside of himself.

"Do you want Mycroft to come around? I can have him stop by later if you'd like."

Sherlock's expression didn't change an iota as John earnestly spoke. He couldn't take it anymore. John got up from his own chair and tossed his book on the table. With his hands on his hips he stood in front of Sherlock.

"Will you answer me?"

Sherlock scrolled down on his phone. "What about?"

"I've been speaking to you."

"About?"

He sighed. "Do you need anything?"

As John towered over his friend he instantly felt ridiculous. He was bullying Sherlock into helping him. This was the man who would single-handedly apprehend serial murders in his free time. He did not need the help of a lowly surgeon to do anything, much less feel better.

"I do not," Sherlock said.

John nodded. "I should go. I think you need some time to yourself."

The silence had returned.

John grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. He waited to hear for his friend to call him back but he knew that hoping for that hand reaching out would be fruitless. He left the flat without saying goodbye.

As he walked outside, John saw a taxi that carried Mrs. Hudson. He debated racing around her and avoiding the whole discussion. It wasn't his news to tell but Sherlock had known Mrs. Hudson for a number of years. Perhaps she'd be a comfort.

She headed for the front door but he cut her off before she got that far.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he shouted.

Confused, she looked all around until she spied her tenant. "John! What are you doing home?"

Faced with having to give the bad news yet again, he regretted choosing to tell her. He couldn't help but choke back tears as he spoke. "It's Sherlock."

Her face fell and her hand jumped to her lips. "What happened? Is he alright?"

He nodded. "It's his mother."

"Oh goodness. John…"

"There was a train crash and, well, she didn't survive," he choked out.

Her eyes immediately filled with tears. "Oh my god. John. That poor woman."

"Had you met her?"

She nodded. "A few years back. She came to London to visit her sister and made a visit. Sherlock had been out for hours that night so we shared a wonderful pot of tea and talked. She's a truly wonderful woman. Patient as a saint. Oh, John, I can't believe it."

"Me neither."

Mrs. Hudson gazed up at the second floor. Her eyes drooped as the wave of realization crossed her mind. "Sherlock. Does he know?"

"I told him."

She gestured at his jacket and the general trajectory of where he was walking.

"I can't be there. He doesn't want anyone there," John said.

Mrs. Hudson wiped away a tear. "I think he might, John. Maybe not right away but he will need you."

"He won't. I don't think so." John had seen hundreds of people in the throes of grief and none of them were like Sherlock. They had a core of emotion to their soul and it made them feel, no matter how much they had been through before the trauma. Sherlock was different. It was like the part of him that cared, really cared, was missing. Losing his mother was no different than misplacing a pair of socks.

"He will. Let me go talk to him. I'll ring you if there's anything to do, okay?"

He needed to get out of there. Hearing all the platitudes would just remind him of being back in the fields. There were so many times, after an attack, where a soldier would come barreling into the makeshift infirmary and demand to see his friend who had recently succumbed to his injuries. John would need to physically drag the men off, kicking and screaming, and desperately calm until they could be moved outside. It hurt too much to think about going through that again.


	4. Chapter 4

His earl grey grew cold. John had sat in the coffee shop for the last hour with his hand wrapped tight around his cup. The leaves wilted and fell to the bottom where they mixed with the threads of tea that still sat in the water.

He stared out the window, the same window he'd stared at with Sherlock the month before. They were on a case and were looking for a young man who had connections with a kidnapping charge. John sat and refilled his one cup of coffee ten times before they finally left the shop after five hours. And now he was here, by himself, letting the guilt eat away at his insides.

The waitress came by for the tenth time and eyed him suspiciously. "Just a bit longer," he said as she passed.

Just then his phone rang.

Mrs. Hudson.

He picked it up on the first ring. "Hello?"

There were sirens blazing in the background. His mind immediately went to the worst-case scenario. "John—"

"Why are there sirens? What's happened?"

"John, your friends are here. That um, Lestrade I believe, he wants Sherlock to come with him to look at a crime scene. I just don't think that it's wise."

He could hear Sherlock's ranting shouts in the background. "Of course he shouldn't. He's not going is he?"

"I can't convince he stay. Oh, I don't know." She sounded exhausted and flustered.

He pushed his cup aside and jumped from his seat. He walked briskly all the way home until he saw the glowing light on top of Lestrade's car. Anderson leaned against the passenger's side door picking at his fingers.

"Eh," John said, "what's going on here?"

Anderson looked up with contempt. "Getting Sherlock. Waste of time I say. We don't need him."

"What's the case?"

He spoke quickly. "Woman got kidnaped from the parking lot at her office. We have a witness. This is foolish really."

John raced past Anderson and up the flight of stairs to get to their flat. Mrs. Hudson stood at the doorway with a tray of uneaten food. He could hear Lestrade talking and Sherlock shouting over him.

John placed a hand on Mrs. Hudson's shoulder to alert her that he was back.

"Oh John, they just keep arguing. I don't know what about anymore."

He grabbed the tray from her hands and placed it on the end-table near the door. "I'll have him eat that later."

She sighed. "He wouldn't talk to me either. I don't know what to say to him."

He gave her an arm squeeze and she let out a sad smile. "I'll see what I can do, okay? Thank you."

Lestrade stood with his arms crossed and his back against the wall.

"…pattern of assaults in the neighborhood."

Sherlock paced back and forth as he spoke. Every move he made was more manic than usual. "Patterns are applicable across violent acts. You say you found a receipt. When was it dated?"

"Today. It was from a lunch, 11:45."

He grabbed his phone and fiddled with it in his hand. He flipped it around and spun it within his palm. For anyone else John would have assumed acute anxiety but Sherlock didn't get anxious. He knew he needed to step in and soon.

"I need to see where it landed. It could be from self-defense. The woman attempted to use her purse as a deterrent from her attacker."

Lestrade pointed towards his car. "It's not here. I could take you down there."

Now was the time. "I don't think—" John began.

Sherlock's head snapped over to his flatmate. "You're back."

"Yes. I don't think now is a good time."

"We need a lead. It'll take just an hour or so," Lestrade said.

Sherlock went to grab his coat but John took steps in his direction. "Not today."

"What is going on?" Lestrade asked. "We are willing to compensate if that what this is about."

John pointed towards the hallway. "May I speak to you for a moment?"

"Not necessary," Sherlock said as he snapped his coat off the hook.

He ignored Sherlock's protest. "Just a moment."

Lestrade looked at the pair in confusion.

Sherlock wrapped his coat around his body. "John is referring to the recent death of my mother. He somehow believes that it has compromised my abilities, which it has not. Now may we go?"

The three of them stood in the living area in complete silence. That is before Sherlock pushed through them both and headed through the door.

Lestrade pointed towards where Sherlock just stood. "Is that true?"

John nodded. "This morning. Train accident."

"Wow," Lestrade said. "I'll tell him to come back. He's not in his right mind."

John shrugged. "He won't listen to you. He thinks he is."

"I can't even imagine. Do you think he's in shock? Like he hasn't processed or something."

"I don't know," John said. "It's Sherlock. It's hard to tell how he'll react to anything."

Lestrade pointed towards the car. "Are you coming?"

"I should. Just in case something happens."

The pair went down the stairs in silence. For every soldier that fell apart emotionally there is the man who never reacted to his best friend being murdered before his eyes. It was like a grenade that lay dormant for months before it exploded. John wasn't ready for the explosion. Not again.


	5. Chapter 5

The car ride was silent. Sherlock sat far back in his seat and gazed out the window at the rushing streets of London. There were so many things to say and John had no compunction to force another word into their friendship. Any ounce of pity that he had felt was being turned into a rotten form of anger that was impossible to express without sounding like a nasty narcissist.

They were to go to a parking lot ten minutes from the flat. Sherlock was to look at the scene, say a few words, and they were to go back home. Lestrade, after hearing the news, resisted needing consultant at all but by then Sherlock was halfway to the car and would rather be wrestled out by bodyguards than by denied the trip.

Sometime between Lestrade's visit and driving to the scene Mycroft had reached the flat. What resulted were a series of angry texts that John attempted to respond to and then quickly ignored. One Holmes was bad enough. It was Sherlock's idea to flee and John was simply supervising.

As they stopped at a red light John examined Sherlock's hands. They were clenched tight in his lap but his right trembled as they sat. As the tremors got worse Sherlock would grab his right hand with his left in an attempt to smother it.

He thought better than to point it out.

The parking lot was as non-descript as any other office lot. The perimeter had been taped off and there were a half dozen police vehicles lined around the sides. In the middle were the few pieces of evidence labeled and maintained for investigation. Sherlock slid of out the car and walked straight for the cluster of evidence markers in the middle of the lot.

He kept his body bent at an angle and circled the evidence like a vulture examining its prey.

"Has this been moved?" he shouted at no one in particular.

A young policewoman moved towards him. "Has what been moved?"

"The receipt," he said. Sherlock bent down and cocked his head to examine the angle of the small slip of paper.

She shook her head. "That's where it was found. But that was after the abduction was reported. I supposed it could have moved before that."

He raised a finger to the air. "Southwest," he muttered. "7…no 8 kph. When did you say the abduction took place?"

The woman quickly looked at her report. "1pm."

He jumped to his feet and began to walk backwards diagonally. He took five large steps before stopping in a spot and kneeling down once again. His eyes focused to a point at the ground in front of him. His gloved fingers felt at the asphalt as he bent his head even further until it was inches from the ground. For just a brief instant John could see his stare shift away. In that instant he saw a moment of panic in Sherlock's face.

"Here," Sherlock said. "It was dropped here."

He pointed at random spot in the lot and the policewoman walked over, confused but obedient. "How do you know?"

John prepared himself to here the exact mathematical formula for how he knew that the piece of paper was dropped precisely at the spot. He waited for the post-rant smirk and the look of self satisfaction that would cross Sherlock's face as the policewoman would stare dumbly at him in confusion and awe.

Instead he looked at her with a blank stare. There was a twitch in his eye that he hid with a subtle brush of his hand. After a few moments the woman moved in closer. "How do you know?" she asked again.

He looked down at the ground and shut his eyes. "The wind," he muttered.

John watched as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his temple. It was fifty degrees with a chill added on top. John took a few steps closer as his medical intuition took hold.

"The wind?" she asked.

He wiped away the sweat and pointed at the spot he'd chosen. "The speed of the wind and the direction. The time. It would have moved…it would have moved the receipt back to here."

His words came out in breathless jumbles. John came in closer, careful not to seem too eager.

The woman looked at Sherlock with confusion. "I see. Should I alert the inspector?"

Sherlock pulled at the sleeves of his jacket. "Yes," he said. "Tell him to look over here instead."

She walked away and left Sherlock standing with his face covered in a fine sheen of sweat. John walked over the moment the policewoman was out of view. "You should sit."

Sherlock shook his head in large uncoordinated movements. "No. I'm fine."

"You're sweating. You're shaking. I'm sure you must feel dizzy. Sherlock, you need to calm yourself or you will pass out."

He had all the symptoms of an anxiety attack and he knew pride might be the only way to get Sherlock to do anything helpful.

John laid a hand on Sherlock's arm but he moved away in a sloppy sidestep. "I am fine," he said.

Sherlock took a few more steps before his short gasping breathing became audible over the wind gusts. He took a series of unproductive breaths before his outstretched hand reached for some kind of support. John rushed to his side before he fell to the ground.

"I've got you," he said as he let Sherlock's weight fall on his shoulders.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock shook against John's body for a few moments. His breath came out in sharp wheezes as they walked towards a splintered bench at the edge of the lot. His feet slid across the asphalt and bumped against the pebbles and bits of concrete that littered the ground.

John lowered Sherlock onto the bench and his flatmate fell against the back with his head tilted towards the sky. His face had grown pale and sallow in the mid-afternoon light.

"Take deep breaths," John said.

Sherlock kept his head tilted back with his hands gripped around his kneecaps. He proceeded to gasp for air.

"Listen to me. I need you to try to take slow breaths. It may feel hard but you need to try. Otherwise you're going to hyperventilate and pass out."

He eyed Sherlock's chest to watch for the change in breathing patterns. There was a slight shift as his ribs pressed tight against his body as he desperately attempted to regain his composure.

"Don't force it. Sherlock, just try to breath."

Sherlock as so concerned with appearing like nothing affected him that he was struggling against basic relaxation techniques. If he didn't listen to John then Sherlock would collapse in front of all the people who wanted him to do nothing but fail.

Lestrade began to walk over with a concerned look on his face. He pointed towards Sherlock and mouthed, What's wrong?

John shook his head and motioned Lestrade away. It was hard enough as it was without extra audience members to the recovery.

Sherlock's breathing came in deep halting breaths but they were more productive than before. His fingers were wrapped so tightly against his leg that his knuckles were bright white and trembled from the pressure.

"Better," John said. "Just slacken your fingers and focus on your breathing patterns. Six seconds in, six seconds out."

Sherlock lowered his head and revealed eyes wet from panicked tears. He quickly blinked them away and pinched the bridge of his nose to change his fear to the normal look of composure he always had.

He attempted to get to his feet. The first step was halting but he stood straight up in perfect posture nearly immediately. John could feel the struggle that it took to look so normal.

"We should go."

Sherlock proceeded to walk ahead.

"Sherlock," John snapped.

He waved John away with a swipe of his hand.

From the tremble that still presented in his fingers John could see that Sherlock was still in the throes of an anxiety attack that he had forced himself to deny was occurring.

Sherlock went right back to the crime scene where a semicircle of policemen looked over the newly discovered spot that their consulting detective had pointed out. They had a photographer laid on the ground with his camera perched centimeters above the asphalt.

Lestrade came over with his arms folded tight across his chest. "Are you leaving?" The question was directed at John while he looked straight through Sherlock.

"Absolutely not," Sherlock said as he blew past Lestrade and straight to the scene.

John sighed. "He's not well," he said.

"I can see that. He should be home," Lestrade said.

"I'm aware. He won't come."

Lestrade looked at John and then back at Sherlock. "Is there anything I can do?"

John shrugged. "I've seen a lot of this in the field but never someone so resistant to the process. Every time he lets his guard down for even a moment he pulls it right back up. It's denial like I've never seen."

Sherlock had pulled out a small magnifying strip and leaned over to examine a small strip of parking lot a few inches from where he'd pointed to previously. He strode around silently like a patient leopard ready to pounce.

"I can order him to leave. Do you think that'll work?" Lestrade asked.

"I don't think so. He'll just stay. I suppose he needs the distraction. I'm just worried that he'll manifest with more severe symptoms the longer he holds in the stress."

Lestrade put a hand on John's shoulder. "If you need anything, just call."

Sherlock walked over and stuffed his magnifying piece in his jacket pocket. "There are small amount of rubber residue fourteen centimeters from the marker. I would have that tested to make and style. It appears to have deep tread but I can't be sure."

Lestrade nodded towards the pair of policemen who had been taking notes as Sherlock spoke. "We'll look into it."

Sherlock walked past Lestrade and headed towards the cab that had stayed put in the corner of the parking lot.

"Where are you going?" John asked.

"Home," Sherlock said as he grabbed his hand again to keep from shaking.


	7. Chapter 7

Mycroft was in the flat when they arrived. Mrs. Hudson had let him in and made him a spread of tea doused with pity and regret. She hung around the flat and milled about all while watching the Holmes boys sit across from each other without saying a word.

John felt exhausted after the crime scene. His shoulder ached from the weight of Sherlock and he felt the anxiety of Sherlock's health taking over his own body. There was nothing normal about how his friend was handling the news and it would only serve to hurt him in the end. The entire ride back was the rise and fall of Sherlock's persistent bouts of anxiety that would take hold of his body and paralyze his chest. In tiny horrific bouts of strength Sherlock would overtake the pain and force a straight back and a neutral expression. It was unlike anything John had ever seen.

Mycroft, on the other hand, looked the same as he ever did. He sat in his formal clothes as he wore a neatly pressed suit jacket and a pair of shoes, shined and polished. He had a small stack of papers in his lap that were encased in a smooth leather folder. As Sherlock shimmied in his seat, Mycroft pulled out a stapled packet and laid it on the table in between the two. John had decided to stand behind Sherlock, allowing him to spy on his movements while also giving him space. He'd procured a mild sedative from his bedroom and had it hidden in the pocket of his jacket just in case the gravity of the situation suddenly dawned on Sherlock.

"She told you about this, correct?"

John peeked over and caught a few words from the document in Sherlock's hands.

"Yes. She may have mentioned it."

"It clearly states how to proceed. You agree."

It seemed to be a question but Mycroft stated it as a directive. From what John could tell it was directions on what to do with his mom after she passed. It was a cold sterile document that befit the family she surrounded herself with.

Sherlock skimmed the document and set it back down. "This is not the most recent version. This is not what she said that she wanted."

"Sherlock…" John said, hoping to not have to finish the rest of her sentence.

Mycroft pointed towards the document. "That's what we're doing whether you want to or not."

"This is what she did for Bernadette. The flowers and the service. I'm sure you recall how unhappy it made her."

Mycroft scoffed. "How unhappy it made you."

"Bernadette?" John asked.

Sherlock cocked his head around. "Our sister."

Sister. This was the first he'd heard of a sister. "What?"

"Not the time, John," Mycroft said.

"Died of leukemia at eight. She was younger than me by eighteen months. Mother did not handle it well."

"She handled it fine," Mycroft snapped back. "You were ten. You don't remember properly."

"I was home. You were away."

Mycroft rolled his eyes and laid his hand out for the paper. "This was not up for a discussion. Please, give it back."

Sherlock flipped the page and perused the final page. "There's no signature."

"It's not an official document."

"Then we do not need to follow it."

"Sherlock, please," John said.

Sherlock placed the paper on the table, deliberately avoiding his brother's hand. Mycroft snatched it and stuck it back in his folder.

"John," Mycroft said, "if you would like to help with the preparations that would be allowed. I don't much assistance at this point."

John nodded.

Sherlock's posture remained straight as a rod as Mycroft pulled out another sheet. "This is the reading you will do."

"Absolutely not."

"Sherlock, you didn't even look at it," John said.

His eyebrows raised as he spoke. "I don't need to."

Mycroft handed the paper above Sherlock's head and John grabbed it. It was a short poem written by Robert Frost. "This is nice. Why won't you read it?"

"Because we're not reading poems." Poems was spit out like it was a curse word.

Mycroft looked up at John with a weary smile. "It was her favorite. She used to read it at Christmas dinner when all the family was together. This is what you're going to read, do you understand?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I'm not a child. I will not—"

John's patience had reached its limit. "It's just a poem. What's the big deal?"

Sherlock turned his head and there was hint of betrayal. "It is not what we discussed. I will not be reading poetry."

"What is it that you discussed?" Mycroft asked. "And when did you possibly talk to her about something such emotional?" He ended with a smirk like emotions to Sherlock was like a dirty story to the average person.

Sherlock's fingers tapped wildly against his leg and he shut his eyes.

"Yes?" Mycroft said.

Sherlock let out a long breath as entire body tensed and pushed desperately against the couch to keep from shaking.

"Mycroft," John whispered.

"This is foolish. Sherlock, we're doing it the way she wrote. You can participate or not, it doesn't matter to me. I'll be around. John?"

"Yes," John said, "I can help if you'd like."

Sherlock's hand jumped from his knee to his chest as he gripped the collar of his jacket. His forehead was drenched in sweat but it was hard to tell as he'd shifted his entire body away from the rest of the group.

"We'll be in touch."

As Mycroft left, John stood by the door and was torn. The closer he got to Sherlock the faster his symptoms would be hidden through pride. But he looked ill and his training took over. John jumped to the kitchen and wet a wash cloth in the sink.

"Sherlock, put this on your forehead."

Before he could get to the chair, Sherlock was on his unstable feet and was heading towards his bedroom. In a few halted steps he was at the door frame and leaning heavily against it.

"Please…" John said.

It was too late. The door was slammed shut.


	8. Chapter 8

Mycroft had left a copy of the packet by the door as he left. John snatched the sheets and retreated to his chair to look over what had been so unreasonable to Sherlock.

The first few paragraphs were standard fare. It called for the usual casket and burial service. There was to be a funeral with a few Bible quotes, a story read by her sister and a poem read by Sherlock. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

John had made a lot of concessions for Sherlock's behavior over the last two years. Having an uncle with autism had made him more patient with his flatmate's odd behavior. He always ignored the sideways glances and eyerolls that Sherlock got but this was far beyond a blunt statement or an inappropriate comment towards Molly. If he didn't honor his mother now he'd live with the regret for his entire life.

He knew better than to push any new request with Sherlock. For someone with trouble processing emotions it was going to be a hard sell for him to do anything but what he wanted. Any variation in the plan would send him spiraling and that was not helpful for anyone right now.

John set the paper under a book so it was out of sight and took a gulp of hard cider that he'd been keeping in the fridge for such an occasion. Tomorrow he had to go back into work and he wasn't keen on worrying about Sherlock the entire time. He decided to start the conversation now and see where the discussion laid at the end of the night. Another day off and he might be out of a job. They needed the money more than Sherlock needed closure.

With the slightest hint of a buzz racing in his brain, John went to Sherlock's door and knocked.

There was no answer and he didn't expect one.

He knocked again just in case Sherlock wasn't decent. When he didn't get an answer John opened the door a crack. Sherlock lay on the bed with a book raised above his head. His eyes darted back and forth across the page and didn't flicker one millimeter at the opening of the door.

"Eh, can I talk to you?"

Sherlock flicked the page of the book in silence.

"Just for a moment," John said as he opened the door and walked into the crisply clean bedroom. He often went out of his way to avoid Sherlock's room as it was more bare and sterile than a jail cell.

When he was great with more silence, John grabbed the desk chair and took a seat across from Sherlock's bed. He was prepared to wait as long as it took for his friend to give up and finally say something.

Fifteen minutes later Sherlock gave in. He bent his arms and brought the book to his side. "You're here," he said with disinterest.

"You knew I was here. Don't pull that with me. I've been in here for fifteen minutes. Just because you're angry with Mycroft does not give you the right to be rude to me as well."

Sherlock swung his legs over his bed and strode over to his bookshelf to deposit his reading material. "Rude?" he said with surprise.

"Yes," John said, "and you need to explain yourself if you want me on your side."

"I don't need you on my side."

"You know what I mean. I'll talk to Mycroft about whatever you need to me to talk to him about but I need to know what's going on. I can't help you if I have no idea what you two are talking about."

Sherlock stood by the bookshelf with his back turned. He seemed to be going out of his way not to come back in John's field of vision by fiddling with each book and rearranging an already organized shelf. "I have no need to discuss this with you. Mycroft can do what he wishes but I will not participate and that is all."

"You have to do something. You'll hate yourself if don't."

He shook his head. "I will be fine. I'm not reading poetry. If Mycroft will do what she requested then I'll think about it. Until then, no."

John could feel a headache coming on. "What did she even want to do? You didn't say."

"Cremated. Ashes scattered at her childhood home in London. No ceremony."

"Oh," John said, "that is quite different."

Sherlock nodded. "Precisely. And that is why I am not reading poetry. Understand?"

John understood perfectly.


	9. Chapter 9

Sherlock wandered around the flat subsisting on nothing but cups of tea and unbridled indignation for everyone and everything around him. When the morning came around he found his flatmate in the kitchen with his eye hovered over a microscope.

John wiped the sleep from his eyes. "Did you go to bed?"

"No," Sherlock said as he adjusted the lens.

"I have to go into work. Are you going to be alright?"

"I will be fine," Sherlock said. "No need to babysit me any longer."

He wanted to argue but it was useless. "I'll call at my lunch break. Answer your mobile."

"I'll do my best."

"Or I will come home and check in on you. Do you understand."

Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes like an indignant teenager. "Yes. I understand."

He walked into work exhausted. He came in a few minutes late and Sarah was at the door with a concerned look. "You okay?" she said as he soldiered past her.

John rubbed his shoulders. "Long night. Didn't get much sleep."

"Sherlock again? Doing some crime fighting?" she said with a smile.

He hadn't talked about it with anyone besides Sherlock's immediate circle and the burden of the story weighed at his heart. "In a way. There was an accident."

Her smile withered away. "Oh my god."

John waved away her concern by saying, "it was just his mother" and then immediately felt terrible like it being his mother made it okay.

"Is she okay?"

He shook his head.

"John, god, I'm so sorry. How's he doing?"

"About what you'd expect. Not doing much of anything. That's the problem."

She shut the door to the exam room that they had found their way into. "So what is he doing? You think he's still in shock?"

"No, he's processed that it's happened. It's that he not experiencing the grief."

"Well," she said, "are you expecting some big crying jag because I don't think you can anticipate that from him. He may not be allowing himself to feel the pain."

"I don't know," John said. "I just can't imagine how this is going to work. He's containing all of it and it's manifesting in anxiety attacks that are so severe and sudden. I'm just worried is all."

She juts her hands in her pockets. "Do you think he'd take something? Perhaps a sedative to let down some of those walls."

John bit his lip. "He'd never take it. Those walls have been up for some time. I think he needs that distance."

"But you're worried."

"I just don't want him to get hurt, you know? It's hard enough grieving without all that baggage placed on top."

She pulled out a prescription pad. "I'm going to write him sedative and you can do with it what you want."

"Sarah—" he started to say.

She stuck the piece of paper in his shirt pocket. "This is all me. Tear it up if you want."

"I don't know."

"He's your friend," she said, "and you may need to think out of the box with him. You know what those feelings can do if you don't address them."

"Of course," he said. His first months back from Afghanistan were awash in nightmares. His resistance to going to the mandated therapist had caused more sleepless nights and panic attacks than he'd cared to admit. He didn't want Sherlock to have to go through the same torture.

The workday was long but it provided the distance that he needed from the drama at home. As he walked up the stairs to the flat he smelled a scent that he hadn't smelled since college. The hallway was filled with the stale aroma of cigarette smoke.

John opened the door and the smell was overwhelming. They had discussed ad nauseum that there was to be no smoking in the house. "Sherlock!" he shouted as he walked into the flat.

No answer.

"Where are you?"

There was cloud of smoke but the fresh smell was still in the air. John pulled his jacket collar to his face and breathed through the fabric. His asthma had been under control for the last few months and pollution like this would set off an attack that he was in no mood to have tonight.

He walked towards Sherlock room and swung open the door. There he lay, in his bed, with a carton of cigarettes next to him and the police scanner blaring.

"You're smoking?" he shouted over the walkie-talkie noises.

"Calms me," he said as he took a drag of the cigarette in his hand.

"I thought we agreed that you wouldn't do this in the house. Hell, I thought you quit."

He shrugged. "Seemed like a good time to start again."

John grabbed the carton and held it against his chest. "No more."

Sherlock's eyebrows lowered.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"You may leave," Sherlock said.

John gripped the carton tight and felt the tension rise in his body. "Have you even eaten all day?"

Sherlock shrugged.

"Get up. I'm making you something."

"No thank you."

John tossed the carton on the nearby chair and went to Sherlock's bed. He grabbed his outstretched arm and started to pull. It was like yanking at a sack of potatoes. Sherlock wouldn't budge.

"Now," he said.

Sherlock didn't say a word. He continued to let John attempted to drag him out of bed without nothing a bemused neutral expression. After a few more attempts he gave up.

"Fine!" John said. He was angry at his own frustration.

Sherlock pulled his arm back against his side. "Close the door."

John grabbed the carton and marched out the door and slammed it on the way.


	10. Chapter 10

John sulked in the kitchen as he shoved a frozen burrito in the microwave. The adrenaline from their tiff still coursed through his veins as he paced back and forth while the microwave counted down.

He had barely survived the return to London. For months he hardly ate, barely slept and walked through the city he once loved like a zombie. Every sound threatened to ignite a wave of anxieties that were stored in his unstable mind. For weeks he hardly left his flat. Each time he'd walk out there would be a horn honking or a man shouting at a friend from across the street. The shock of sudden noises would flood his system with panic that was just as powerful as the attack on his med tent itself.

There was a time at the market when he was buying crackers and tea when a small child crossed in front of him. John barely avoided a collision with the boy but lost his footing and collapsed into a display of sweets. The cardboard snapped under his body and twenty pounds of caramels fell on top of him. As the food thudded on his back he saw the gun pointed back in his face. His chest tightened, as he looked the deranged soldier in the eye as the hand with the pistol shook violently from side-to-side. John could hear the screams of his fellow soldiers as they lay on the ground bleeding to death. As the grocery clerk attempted to dig him out, John lay on the floor with his hand clutching his chest and gasping for a breath that would not come. It took three clerks and an off-duty policeman to finally calm him enough to avoid a trip to hospital.

Sherlock was the only thing that kept him from going down those dark roads on a nightly basis. Medicine had been all he focused on for the first thirty years of his life and it was what almost killed him. As he lay on the floor of the medicine tent with the blood seeping out of his chest he had so many regrets. His life had been a plateau. So much studying and researching and he hadn't lived, not really.

This was his refuge. He couldn't go back to living a life of mundanity. He couldn't let his friend go down that dark path and lose all the adventure from their world. It wasn't fair.

The microwave beeped and John pulled out the burrito and stuck it on a plate. He would keep making Sherlock food until he finally gave in and ate.

Night had taken hold and the clock clicked over to ten o'clock as John opened the door and found Sherlock hadn't moved in the last two hours. He was still on his back with his phone hovered over his head.

"I brought you food."

He gestured towards the table.

"You haven't eaten in over a day."

No answer.

"You need to eat something."

No answer.

John set the plate on the table and stood by the door. "Can I  _do_ anything?"

"John there is nothing I would like less than to talk about this with you."

"Jesus," he muttered.

Sherlock looked over and saw the devastation on John's face. "Are you alright?"

John rubbed his eyes. His stomach gnawed and he was operating on an hour of restless sleep. He could feel his old patterns beginning to emerge. "Not really."

Sherlock brought the phone to his side and pulled him up slightly. "If you must know, Mycroft has arranged the service. Saturday."

"Are you going?"

"Absolutely not."

"Sherlock," John said, "you have to."

"I don't  _have_ to do anything."

John lightly hit the side of the door with his fist. "Yes you do."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed to slits. "I don't."

"You'll hate yourself if you don't go."

"It's not a debate. You can talk to Mycroft about getting a car."

John stood, confused. "How do you mean?"

"You're going."

"Not if you're not."

Sherlock looked over with surprise. "You should go."

"But—"

"Mrs. Hudson needs company. You should go."

John could see the pain in Sherlock's face as he spoke. It was buried beneath walls of stubborn resistance but crept into the strained expression he maintained to keep from looking depressed.

"I'll think about it," John said.

* * *

As he left the room John pulled out the pills that Sarah had prescribed. After his mid-day talk with Sherlock, which amounted to a ten second series of grunts he got it filled at the pharmacy.

This was it. He was going to get Sherlock to talk whether he liked it or not.

 


	11. Chapter 11

As he fixed up a cup of tea, John felt supremely stupid. Sherlock could tell the difference between two different brands of tobacco by sight but John was about to try to sneak an entire crushed Valium into a cup of Earl Grey. A four year old would be able to tell that something was off. He pulled the kettle off the stove and backed away from his plan. Sherlock needed something to help him cope but this wasn't the way to do it.

From what he gleamed from Lestrade, Sherlock's drug habits in the past were bordering on out of control. When they first met about eight years back Sherlock would show up to crime scenes high on what he figured were pain pills or cocaine. He would be frantic and manic as he jumped from spot to spot around the area. If he hadn't been so brilliant then he'd have been kicked out of the game long before. Anderson had been charged with controlling the young Sherlock and grew tired of his constant comments and unreliable behavior.

Every instinct from medical school told him to not give in to Sherlock's tendencies. He'd been around former addicts who had simply focused their obsession from getting coke to working out or eating junk food. Sherlock took all his willpower and focus from drugs to his work but, without work, he'd have a void. John knew that he could take advantage of that void. There is no addict that was so strong that they couldn't be tempted back to their old ways. With a heavy heart he left the tea on the counter and stuck the full bottle of pills in his pocket.

* * *

Sherlock was still on his bed with his eyes wide open, staring at a old dusty reference book that he'd pulled off his wall. His pupils didn't move. John could tell he was just looking forward and giving the illusion of reading. His mind was a hundred miles away.

"You awake?" John asked as he opened the door.

Sherlock didn't say a word.

"I was at work today and I thought I could get you something."

"I told you, I don't need anything." Sherlock's voice was laden with lack of sleep and mental exhaustion. His usual bite was lost but the stubborn sense of purpose was still there.

"I don't want to talk, not if you don't want to. I thought you might want to take something."

Sherlock's eye twitched and John knew that he was going down the right track.

"Sarah wrote me a note for—"

"Sarah?" he asked.

He regretted dragging another person into this story. "Well, I was late and she wondered…" he let the story trail off.

Sherlock's eyes shut for a moment. "Why did you tell Sarah?"

"That's not the point," John said.

The book came down and Sherlock looked over and, with the light hitting his face, John could see the sallow look in his eyes and cheeks.

"What  _is_  the point?"

John pulled out the orange bottle and set it on the table between the two of them. "It's Valium."

Sherlock peeked over at the bottle. "I see that."

"You should eat something before you take one."

"What makes you think that I'll take one?"

John nods over the pills. "At the very least you need to sleep. It'll help with that. It helped me after—"

Sherlock didn't need to press the issue. They hadn't had a heart-to-heart about John's war experiences but he knew the aftermath. Even after John moved in, the nightmares hadn't gone away completely. For the first month or so John would wake up screaming and race into the living room like the flat was on fire. Sherlock would be in there already reading or researching and did his best to calm his new flatmate down.

"I'm not tired," he said.

John looked at the clock. It was almost nine and at least forty-eight hours since Sherlock had slept, if not longer. "Take one of those. You need to rest."

* * *

John left the room with the open pill bottle and a small stack of crackers on a plate next to it. He put his ear to the door and listened for a sign of movement on Sherlock's part. For a full minute there was nothing but silence. Then he heard the muffled creak of the bed's springs and the pop of the pill bottle top open. A wave of relief fell over him as he heard the crunch of a cracker.

If all he got were a few hours sleep, then that would go a long way for a man like Sherlock. John walked from the door and awaited either the silence of sleep or the whimper of realization. Whatever it took, he would get his friend back from the dark depths of the pain he was feeling.

 


	12. Chapter 12

John waited nearly an hour for Sherlock to make a peep. He organized and reorganized the spices in the cabinets and the reference books on the shelves. After forty minutes of quiet work he went to the tellie and attempted to distract himself with a rerun of Graham Norton before giving up and going back to Sherlock.

Just as he went to knock, he heard the bedsprings squeak again and the light thuds of footsteps heading towards the door. He jumped back and scuttled to his chair with the air of looking casual. How convincing he was didn't seem to matter as Sherlock barreled past him and into the kitchen.

John observed him not unlike watching a flock of rare birds in the wilderness. He didn't want to make any sudden movements and scare him off from whatever he was doing. The only time Sherlock ever went into the kitchen was if there was overflow in his study and he needed more room to complete an experiment. But now the fridge door was open and he was rummaging through the contents inside.

"John?" Sherlock said quietly from behind the door.

He jumped to his feet and slowly walked over. "Yes?"

Sherlock leaned back from the door and pointed towards the food. "There was pasta here the other day."

John couldn't remember the last time that he'd made pasta but it surely wasn't a few days prior. "Oh I don't think so. There's some chicken left over from my dinner with Sarah. It's a few days old but I'm sure it's good."

Sherlock snatched the foil wrapped piece of meat and slapped it on the counter. With clumsiness unbecoming of him, Sherlock yanked the foil open and grabbed the meat with both hands and scooted it onto a paper towel.

"You want a plate?" John asked.

Sherlock walked towards the living area with a huge piece of chicken in his mouth. "I'm fine," he said.

He wandered to his usual chair and fell into the seat with a whoosh and a plop. John grabbed a plate and a fork and brought it over to Sherlock. He snatched the chicken and deposited it on the porcelain.

"There," he said.

Sherlock managed a smile.

"How are you feeling?" John asked.

He set down his plate and leaned back far in his seat. "Still fine. John, you worry so much. It doesn't suit you."

It looked like Sherlock and it sounded like Sherlock but the phrasing felt forced. Bit by bit he could see his friend's barriers being pulled down around him even as he desperately held on for dear life to keep them up. It was just a matter of waiting until the ground was barren until he really tried to speak to Sherlock like a human being.

"It suits me fine. I'm allowed to worry. I'm your friend. It's my job."

Sherlock laughed. "Your job…" he mumbled.

"How many did you take?"

Sherlock took out his fingers and began to count. When he got up to seven, John made a little yelp.

"Oh relax, John."

"How many?"

Sherlock reached down and tore off another bite of the chicken. "Just two."

"You're supposed to take one."

"Oh, well, I think I can handle two."

John leaned back in his seat and tried to figure out the best way to proceed. This might be his only chance to talk to Sherlock, the real Sherlock, before his friend's personality grabbed hold and he was lost to his own neuroses. He'd been to enough therapists to know how they began and how even the simplest statements could launch stories he didn't know he still remembered.

"Bernadette…" he said.

Sherlock stopped chewing. "What about her?"

"Why don't you talk about her?"

His posture stiffened a bit. "Well she's dead, John."

"So?"

"Why would I talk about her? There's nothing to say."

"What was she like?"

Sherlock's lip curled up. "I'm not reminiscing with you."

John shrugged. "I'm not making a scrapbook here. I'm just wondering. I'm curious."

Sherlock wiped the side of his mouth with a finger and tapped his hands against his leg. It was a behavior that John had never seen from him. He was uncomfortable.

"It's just research," John said.

"Well played," Sherlock said.

"So what was she like?"

Sherlock sighed before he spoke. "Kind. Very patient. A bit like Molly, smart at schooling but not very practical. Silly I suppose."

"And you were older?"

"Yes. Year and a half."

"And where was Mycroft?"

Sherlock's taps grew faster. "Boarding school. He was in secondary school by then and father was out of the country on business."

"What'd you two do?"

Sherlock shook his head and grabbed another bite of chicken.

"C'mon," John said, "I'm just wondering what a young Sherlock does with a little sister."

"I don't remember."

"Bollocks you don't remember."

Sherlock took a few long blinks. "Normal childhood activities. She'd pull out dolls and she'd force me into her narratives. I'd read to her while she drew. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"That sounds sweet," John said.

"Ordinary."

The walls had almost completely fallen. He could feel they were getting to the core.

"How old were you when she got sick?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"Well if you a year and a half older, then nine? Eight?"

"Nine," Sherlock mumbled. He sloppily picked at a thread on his pants. His movements grew heavier and less coordinated by the second. It wasn't long before he passed out completely.

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk—" he said with strain in his voice.

John began to walk over to comfort but he thought better of it. "It's okay. What happened?"

"John, please. Can we not?"

"Leukemia is very painful. Did you have to see her?"

Sherlock bit his lip and nodded slightly.

"Was it a quick illness?"

Another nod.

"Were you there when…" he let the implied question drift out into the air. Sherlock's head dipped lower until his chin nearly touched his chest.

It was then that he heard the faintest hints of the heaves of a man struggling not to cry.

"Sherlock…" he said. John went to lend a comforting hand and got all the way to the arm of the chair before Sherlock put a hand for him to back away. He stepped back and Sherlock pulled himself into a ball in his chair. His hand completely covered his face and muffled out the sharp inhalations. John grabbed a nearby blanket and wrapped it around Sherlock's back and let him cry for the first time in thirty years.

 


	13. Chapter 13

John went to his bedroom and felt an overwhelming sense of guilt cross over him. What he had done was manipulative and selfish. He'd opened an emotional can of worms on a person ill-equipped to handle a stubbed toe much less the trials of grief.

This wasn't the way he wanted this to happen. It was underhanded and appealed to Sherlock's worst qualities. He lay on his bed and hoped that sleep would magically come but his mind would not allow it. If his therapist had drugged him and forced him to confess all his pain he'd be furious. He knew he shouldn't do the same to his friend.

John rolled off his bed and cautiously opened the door. From his angle, it appeared Sherlock had sat up, taken off the blanket and had the TV playing. At least he wasn't crying.

He walked out of his bedroom and stepped into the living area. Sherlock didn't look up but he didn't feel like he being ignored. At this point it was a miracle he was even awake much less conversing.

"Sherlock?" John asked as he crossed nearly next to his friend.

He looked over with heavy eyes lined with red. He was hanging onto consciousness by a thread. "Hm?"

"You should go to bed."

He pointed towards his chair. "I can sleep here."

"No, no. That's not comfortable. Let me help you." John expected the same tirade the word  _help_ came near Sherlock. But he simply bowed his head and put an out-stretched arm out.

John wrapped Sherlock's arm around his neck and hoisted him to his feet. Being a solid six inches taller the walk to the bedroom was difficult but necessary. Sherlock flopped onto his bed was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

* * *

"How is he doing?"

Lestade rang at eight in the morning, not one second earlier than socially acceptable. John was dead asleep when his mobile went off and it took the better part of the conversation to wake up.

"Doing okay. I gave him a sleeping pill last night."

"John…"

Lestrade had seen some of the worst of Sherlock back in the day and he could anticipate his concerns. "It's not addictive," he lied, "and he was going on almost 60 hours without resting. It was for his health."

"Be careful with him. He has relapsed before."

John sighed. "Greg, I've got it under control. This is my job. I know what I'm doing."

"I'm sorry. Of course you do. I just get worried."

"I know. It's okay. We're all a little on edge."

"Do you think he'd be up for a little work to take his mind off? We're interviewing a witness if he's interested," Lestrade said.

"I don't know. I'll call you if he seems up to it. I'm going into work in an hour. I'll ring you by then," John said. He fully expected the answer to be a no but this was not a predictable experience.

* * *

Sherlock was still asleep when John left for week. He didn't dare try to wake him up and left with making barely a peep. It promised to be a slow day at the clinic, Thursdays tended be in his experience. After a routine check-up and a nasty case of hay fever crossed his examination table that morning, he was free. Instead of peace, he was greeted to his phone frantically alerting him to three missed calls.

They were all from Lestrade.

Shit.

He immediately dialed him back.

"John?" Lestrade shouted into the phone.

"Yes," he said, breathless, "what's happening?"

There was the hint of shouting in the background. As muffled as it was, he knew exactly who it was. "Sherlock's here," he said.

"How?"

"I have no idea. He must have heard you on the phone. You have to take him home."

"What's going on?"

The shouting came in clearer focus for a moment before Lestrade's voice came back. "You hear that?"

"What's he doing?"

"He's confused. He's just walking around and talking but it doesn't make any sense. Real shaky. I don't know what he's on but it's not pretty. I'll keep him in my office but you need to get him."

No good deed goes unpunished. He knew he should have grabbed the Valium before he left. This was what he was afraid of happening. John grabbed his jacket and bolted to the door. "I'm on my way."

 


	14. Chapter 14

John didn't know what to expect when walked into the station. He'd gathered an array of tools and medicines from the clinic and stuffed them in his bag before he left. Lestrade attempted to describe Sherlock's condition but it could have been anything from a stroke to allergies. He needed to spare his friend from as much humiliation as possible.

As he walked through the front doors of the station, a half dozen eyes turned right towards him. Anderson pointed towards Lestrade's office with a bemused smirk that he wanted to slap right off his face. John trudged ahead with the pinpricks of judgment and pity stabbing him as he moved.

Lestrade sat his desk and had one eye on a folder in front of him and another on the figure in the corner. John stepped inside the office and Lestrade cocked his head to reveal Sherlock handcuffed to a bench against the wall.

"Is that necessary?" John asked as he headed towards his patient.

"I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't. You should have seen him, John. I've never seen him like that before."

His body was slacken and weak as he leaned against the wall. His forehead was caked in sweat and his eyelids were heavy. "Sherlock?" John said quietly.

Sherlock grunted a response.

"How are you feeling?"

His hand sloppily pointed at Lestrade and then at his handcuffs. "They locked me up."

John gestured towards the cuffs himself. "Can you…"

Lestrade jumped up with a key in hand in made quick work of releasing Sherlock from his cuffs.

Sherlock's hand fell limply to his side. Just as quickly he straightened his back, pulled the cuffs of his jacket down and attempted to maintain the stern expression he'd perfected over the years. "We should go," Sherlock said.

He began to stand up and the moment he put weight on his leg it cocked out and he lost his footing. With the arm of the chair as a balance he lowered himself back down without comment.

"I need to check you out, okay?" John said.

"Must it be here?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes, it must. Just relax."

John knew the audience reveled in every moment of this display and he had no interest in elongating it for their pleasure. However he could see that Sherlock was in no condition to be moved, at least until he figured out what was going on.

He pulled off Sherlock's coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal his wrist. For a moment he thought he had gotten the incorrect spot until he finally felt Sherlock's heartbeat. It was slow. Too slow. No wonder he was exhausted. He grabbed the stethoscope from his bag and slid it in between the buttons of Sherlock's shirt.

"Take a breath."

Sherlock complied and took a wheezy breath. He could hear the crackle of fluid in the lungs. That didn't fit with a Valium overdose but it was still cause for concern. He flashed a light in Sherlock's eyes. His pupils dilated which was a good sign but his reaction time was gravely slow.

He grabbed a thermometer and stuck it in Sherlock's ear. A few moments later it beeped.

102.

He had a fever on top of the Valium. No wonder he was so out of it. Days of not eating and sleeping would destroy anyone's immune system, even Sherlock's.

"Sherlock, you've got a fever. We got to get you home, okay?"

He looked up with a defeated expression.

John gestured for Lestrade to come over and help get Sherlock to his feet. "Is there another way out?" John asked.

Lestrade pointed towards the south wall. "Cuts right to the lot. You want me to call an ambulance?"

John shook his head. "He combined meds and had a reaction. I'll monitor him at the flat."

* * *

With Sherlock wrapped over his shoulder, John got a taxi in a few minutes. The driver popped out and helped slide the nearly unconscious man into the backseat. John quickly raced to the other side and straightened his friend out in his seat and buckled him in.

As they drove, Sherlock's eyes blinked open. "Where are we?"

"Taxi," he said, "and we're going home."

He exhaled a sharp breath. "Where were we?"

"You don't remember?"

Sherlock twisted his body to look behind him for a hint but a wave of dizziness took over his face and fell back to his stable position. "I—I don't know."

John tried to not feel concern and convinced himself that this was a normal symptom. It is so much easier to read about it then actually see Sherlock not remember the last hour of his life.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Just lay back and relax."

"Doesn't matter?" he says. "Where?"

He could sense the panic in Sherlock's voice. For all he knew he had just had major surgery or committed mass murder. "The station. You went there to help but started to feel ill."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I was at work," John said.

Sherlock gently nodded and flopped his head over so he could look at the window. It was a crisp bright afternoon with tourists and locals alike walking carefree down the streets.

"When we get back I want you to go straight to bed. I'll have some meds for you in a few hours to help with the fever but I need you to work with me. Do you understand?"

He nodded again but didn't say a word. His entire body dropped as his eyes fluttered closed.

"Sherlock?" John said as he gently shook him back awake.

He snapped to life. "What?"

"Stay awake until we get back to the flat. I can't get you up the stairs myself."

The taxi stops in front of their building but a few spots away. "Eh, can you go up to the door?"

"Sorry mate, there's cars there. Best I can do."

John opened the door to a half dozen cars he'd never seen before. "Strange."

Sherlock pawed at his door and, after four tries, wrenched it open. As he did, his eyes caught the onslaught of cars. "Mycroft…" he said.

John was busy paying the driver. "What?"

"Mycroft."

Sherlock pointed at the black car parked across the street and John recognized it immediately.  _Shit_ , he thought. He did not have the patience to deal with Mycroft right now.

Sherlock's eyes squinted as he pulled himself up to his feet and scanned the other cars. "I know those…" he said. He gripped the frame of the door desperately as he struggled to stay upright.

John didn't have time for his delayed deductions. If the fever didn't break in the next few hours then he'd spend the night at hospital and he wasn't in the mood. "Let's go."

John grabbed Sherlock's arm and wrapped it around his neck. With as much as he could muster, John maneuvered his giant friend towards the flat. Sherlock made small steps and nearly tripped on his own feet more than once. "I know those…" he kept repeating as they got closer and closer to the door.

The clouded thinking was to be expected. John forced himself to think clinically and not get worried. If Sherlock had been any other patient he would be written off with a prescription for chicken soup and rest. But with all hundred-sixty pounds of him on his shoulders, John could feel him tremble as he walked and the hoarse breaths that he produced with exertion. He prayed that the fever was nothing more than the manifestation of exhaustion.

As they got closer to the flat, John could hear the sound of people talking inside.

"John?" Mrs. Hudson said from the bottom of the stairs.

He paused for a moment and turned his head towards her. She had that nervous smile that she often plastered on whenever she'd overstepped her bounds.

"Whose in there?" he asked.

"Mycroft brought them," she said. "He was very insistent that they speak with Sherlock."

 _Shit, shit, shit_. He yanked Sherlock up another step.

"Is he alright?" she asked.

"I hope so," he said. "But he needs peace and quiet. Can you ask them to go?"

She shook her head. "I did," she said. "He won't leave."

John felt a sense of dread as they reached the door. When he swung it open he found his flat filled with Mycroft and two uninvited female guests with the same sinewy grace that he found in the Holmes kin.

One of the women got one look at Sherlock and marched over in concern. "Sherlock?" she gasped as she bent down and lifted his chin up.

His eyes were hardly open and he didn't register recognition in the woman.

Mycroft came up over and grabbed the nearly prostrate Sherlock and hoisted him upright. "Sit down and wake up," he said as he deposited Sherlock on the chair.

"Mycroft," John said, "he needs to rest. He's ill."

"We're discussing mother's wishes now and it will be resolved now. I don't have time for games any longer."


	15. Chapter 15

John's head swam as he tried to make sense of the impromptu reunion that Mycroft had orchestrated. Sherlock lay against the chair desperately trying to keep his eyes open. One of the women, a middle-aged librarian type with stern eyes looked at him in disgust. The other, a shorter rosy brunette raced to the kitchen and fetched him a glass of water and patted his head.

"Mycroft, could I speak with you?"

He stood in the center of the room with his arms crossed. "I don't see why this involves you, John."

"For one moment," he said.

Mycroft didn't budge.

"Now," he said with a bite.

Mycroft turned his head to see John halfway to his bedroom. He smiled politely at each of the women and made quick time to John's room.

"I told you to watch him," Mycroft said.

John shut the door behind them. "I tried. He's ill."

"Did you give him medication? He seems confused."

John sighed. "A sleeping pill. But just to help him rest."

It was too late. Mycroft had laid his judgment on the table. "Unbelievable. You gave an addict a sedative? Why don't you just purchase him some cocaine while you're at it."

John wrenched his hands into a tight fist and dug his nails tight into his palm to keep from saying something he may regret. "He has a fever. 102. He has to rest."

"This will take just a minute then we can leave. Is that alright with you, Doctor?" His emphasis of the word doctor felt obnoxiously insincere but he chose to let it slide. A promise from a Holmes was rare and wasn't ready to compromise his chances.

They exited the room and Sherlock's color appeared to have pinked up by a miraculous turn of self-control on his part. His inner fear of his family was stronger than any illness could ever be. He wouldn't be surprised if Sherlock jumped up and danced a waltz at the rate he was going. Still he slouched in his chair and looked wearily at the unnamed women that stood in front of him.

"I was talking to Marie and Donna and they agree that you ought to attend on Saturday."

Sherlock took a long sorrowful breath. "I told you…"

The stern woman's face tightened. "Young man, your mother gave up her career for you. She was a nurse, and a good one, and she stopped for you. This is the least you could do to show your gratitude."

"She quit for Bernie. She worked until she got sick, Aunt Marie."

Marie didn't back down. "And she spent so much time making sure you had a happy childhood. She would write me letters about how difficult it was with your father and sister gone. Show your respects."

Sherlock turned his head. "She told me that she wanted different."

Donna placed a hand on her sister to keep her from derailing the conversation. "Sherlock, what was it that she wanted."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head to regain his composure. With his usual intensity he mustered a flurry of words. "She told me that Bernie's funeral was decorative and she didn't want her family to fuss. She didn't want her family walking behind her casket with tissues and flowers, weeping over her. She wanted it quiet. That is what she wanted."

The speech robbed him of his pink glow and his skin grew pale once again. John stood in the corner picking at his cuticles and praying for the debate to come to a close.

Mycroft stepped in front of Sherlock and bent down until he was at eye level. "I don't believe you."

"It's the truth."

Mycroft turned to his aunts. "He's on drugs. He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Mycroft…" John chimed from the corner but it meant nothing.

Donna and Marie shook their heads in disapproval.

"What would she think."

"After all that you put her through."

"And at a time like this…"

"I shouldn't be surprised."

The words slipped from their mouths too easily. Sherlock looked at his disappointed aunts with an expression bordering on devastation. John had never seen Sherlock care one bit of what other people thought but in that moment he seemed prime to defend himself if only he had the energy.

"Not drugs," he said. "Sleeping pills."

"Just the start," Mycroft said. "I thought you'd at least wait until she was in the ground before you started up your old habits."

John wanted to punch Mycroft in the face but he held back. Sherlock looked up at his brother and trembled. "Excuse me?"

Mycroft started to stand. "You heard me."

Before John could stop him, Sherlock jumped up from the chair and grabbed Mycroft by the lapels of his jacket. Mycroft tried to pull Sherlock off of him but his brother was too strong. In one swift motion Sherlock pulled back his arm and, with every ounce of strength left in his body, he hit Mycroft in the side of the head.

Mycroft launched back and fell against an end table and fell to his knees. "Bloody hell, Sherlock!" he shouted as he cradled his head in his hands.

John ran to where Sherlock fell after his punch. He was on the ground face down with his arm outstretch in front of him. "Shit," he muttered as he bent down to Sherlock's side.

He was unconscious and all the color had left his skin. John felt for his pulse and had fallen even lower. A touch to his temple revealed the fever hadn't broken and may have gone up. He grabbed Sherlock's arm and tried to get him up but his own muscles were drawn and drained.

"Little help?" he shouted to the room.

Mycroft struggled to his feet and bounded to his brother's side. "What do you need?"

"Help me get him to his bed."

John's heart raced as they carried Sherlock into his room and dropped him in his bed. It didn't matter how much training he'd been through, John was still scared to death.


	16. Chapter 16

Mycroft helped in his own silent stoic way to get his brother into bed. Together they pushed him onto the mattress and under the sheet. John took his temp and it had gone down to 101.8. Still high but the trend downwards was hopeful. He spied the bottle of Valium on the bedside table and swiped it before Mycroft could comment on it.

"You don't think he needs hospital?" Mycroft asked.

John shook his head. "I don't. This will sort itself out on its own. He needs rest."

Mycroft quickly turned his head away from John and covered his face.

"Mycroft?"

John went to him but Mycroft stepped away.

"What is it?"

He slowly released the hands from his face and revealed the tears that welled in his eyes. "You take care of him."

"I will," John said.

"He's all I have now," Mycroft said.

"I know."

He let out a long sigh.

"She wanted him there."

John nodded. "I know. I understand."

Mycroft wiped away a tear that began to fall down his cheek. "Tell him that he doesn't have to read the poem. He can sit in the back. It doesn't matter to me. But I do want him to come."

John shared something that he hadn't shared with anyone since it happened. "I missed my father's funeral," he said quietly.

"You did?"

John nodded and bit his lip to keep from crying. "Two years ago. I was deployed and I got the word in the middle of surgery."

"What happened?"

He struggled to not relive the moment. The pain felt just as excruciating now as it did the moment his uncle told him over the phone. All John remembered was looking at the young lieutenant who held the phone to his ear and prayed that it was all some kind of sick joke.

"Heart attack," he said. "He was out playing golf and collapsed. My mother insisted that I not go to all the trouble of coming home for the ceremony and I didn't. I stayed in my room and tried to wrap my mind around what happened."

Mycroft nodded. "Didn't work, did it?"

"No, it did not," John said.

Sherlock shifted in his bed but stayed asleep. "She really did dote on him. I was father's project and he was mother's. Father taught me to debate and lead and Mother catered to his quirks."

"Quirks?" John said.

Mycroft cocked an eyebrow. "Oh yes. They'd spend hours cataloging the leaves in our yard. There was a basement filled with notebooks with nearly identical drawings of the flora of our estate. He wouldn't be doing any of this if it wasn't for her."

"Incredible."

"She was," Mycroft said.

* * *

John sat at Sherlock's side for the next hour. His aunts came in and talked for a few minutes before they strode out of the flat with the promise that they'd ring before they visited in the future. They didn't need any more commotion.

He hadn't thought about his father in years. Their relationship had been strained ever since his parents were divorced. It was never explicitly stated why the Watsons broke up but the rumor was infidelity on his father's end. For the longest time John was not able to reconcile how his father could make such a grievous error that dismantled their family. As a teenager he hardly spoke to his father and, since he moved to America, it was easy to avoid him. It was as an adult he realized that their divorce had nothing to do with infidelity. His mother had decided the whole thing and John made great efforts to reconnect with a man he'd written off years before.

"John?"

He snapped to attention. Sherlock's voice was hoarse and dry.

"What is it?"

"Are you alright?"

John laughed at the question. "Yes. I'm not the one in bed though, am I?"

"You should go. I'm fine."

"No," John said, "I want to wait until your fever goes down."

"You're a good doctor," Sherlock slurred, "but clingy."

"Part of the job. Most bothersome profession, eh?"

Sherlock smiled.

"Mycroft was playing you, John," he said.

He just wished Sherlock would go back to sleep. "Yeah?"

"Those aunts. They own my mother's house now. He's trying to get in with them and cut me out. He's saying such nasty things…"

John laid a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "Let's not worry about that right now."

Sherlock's eyes filled with tears. "It's not fair," he said quietly.

"I know."

He didn't have the strength to wipe the tears away. John pretended not to notice them.

"I can't go. I can't. I can't…" he kept repeating the same words over and over again as he body grew more rigid.

"Sherlock?"

His hands clenched to a fist and pounded against the mattress. Every muscle in his body pulled tight and grew stiff. John knew what came next. He rushed to Sherlock's side and held his head in place and fruitlessly avoided his uncontrolled limbs as he had a seizure.

"Stay with me," he said as Sherlock's body shook beneath him.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he shouted as loud as he could. "Hurry!"

He struggled to maintain hold Sherlock's skull. This wasn't the fever. He'd taken more Valium than he'd let on. He quickly grabbed the bottle from his pocket with one hand and peeked through the transparent orange plastic. Most of the pills were gone.

 _Shit_.

He should have brought him in hours ago. This was all his fault.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he shouted again.

The panic had set in and he held Sherlock for dear life as the shaking slowly grew less intense.

"What is it?" she shouted back as she made her way through the flat.

"Back here!" he said.

She walked in with laundry in hand. The moment she saw Sherlock on the bed she dropped the linens and backed away. "John…" she cried.

"Call 999. We need an ambulance."

She stood and stared. Frozen.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he barked.

She raced out of the room.

The seizure began to slow but the damage was done. As Sherlock's tremors slowed to a near halt, John backed away with panic.

He had done this.

This was all his fault.

 


	17. Chapter 17

Sherlock's face had gone a chalky white by the time the medics appeared at their door. John didn't dare do anything more than keep track of Sherlock's pulse and make sure that he kept breathing. He had already done enough damage as it was and he didn't want any more blood on his hands.

Two young medics raced through the door to the flat with a gurney rolling behind them. The mumbled sounds of their radio echoed through the empty room.

John's hand was still wrapped around Sherlock's wrist as he felt for his friend's thready pulse. "In here!" he shouted.

The footsteps neared closer and closer as they entered Sherlock's room and quickly consumed all the spare space inside. They gestured for John to move away from their patient and he reluctantly backed away. He deposited Sherlock's limp hand against his side and moved a few feet back.

"Can you tell us what happened?"

John could feel himself shake as he finally had nothing to do but watch. The adrenaline was poison to him. He had to stay focused. It was the least he could at this point.

"Hey!" the other medic shouted.

John snapped to attention. "He has a fever, last recorded it was 101.8 but it's fluctuated for the last hour or so. He also has been taking Valium and I suspect an overdose. He was sluggish and his breathing was shallow. When I called you he was convulsing."

The medic's both looked up at the same time. "Convulsing. Okay. You have the pills?"

John pulled the bottle out of his pocket. "Here."

The medic grabbed the bottle and stuck it in his pocket.

Sherlock was lifted off the bed and placed gently on the gurney. The strapped an oxygen mask over his face and placed electrode patches on his chest. The heart monitor burst to life with the gentle hill of Sherlock's pulse. They placed a thermometer in his ear and pulled it out. The medic grimaced.

"What is it?"

"102.4"

"Shit," John said.

They pulled the gurney to its full height and placed an IV bag on the arm above Sherlock's head. With a swift hand he placed a needle in Sherlock's arm and the liquid trickled down.

"Ready?" the medic asked John as they began to leave the room.

"I'll be right there," he said.

They gave him a respectful nod as they pushed the gurney out of room and out the front door.

The silence of the flat was unbearable. John sat down on the edge of Sherlock's bed to catch his breath. Every time he let his brain quiet for even a second he could hear the soldiers' blood curdling screams. He could smell the stale iron stench as their blood spilled onto the ground. His shoulder pulsed and the barrel of the gun was in his face yet again.

John forced his eyes open.

He had to go. As hard as it was to make it downstairs without screaming he had to get in that ambulance.

* * *

They wouldn't let him in the exam room. He stood at the door and pleaded to allow him to help. It took two nurses to push him away and force him into the waiting room.

The noises got louder the farther he was away from Sherlock. It didn't matter how hard he plugged his ears, he could still hear each one of them. He desperately tried every technique the therapist had thrown his way. No amount of deep breathing and mindful statements made his heart beat any slower.

"John!"

He hissed a breath out and grabbed the arms of the seat. All he wanted was relief.

"John!"

A pair of hands grabbed his arm and shook. He swung at the attacker and knocked them back. Not this time. He could feel the bullet wrench through his shoulder and knock him to the ground.

"John, it's me," the voice said.

He opened one eye to see Sarah sitting next to him.

"Sarah?"

She didn't dare try to touch him. The welt on her arm from him pushing her was cue enough. There wasn't time to apologize now. "They called me," she said.

The fuzz in his mind was trying to compete with the reality in front of him. "Why?"

"I wrote the script. They had some questions I suppose. God, John, how did this happen?"

"He overdid it. I should have anticipated this. I knew his history. I should have known…"

Sarah raced a cautious hand to rub his shoulder. "He was hurting. You were being a friend."

"Some friend," he said.

"They told me he has a fever. That's not your fault. You didn't do this to him. It was just an accident."

John fought back the tears. "Mycroft's going to be so mad…" he said quietly.

"He'll understand."

"I promised. I promised him that I'd watch him and now look."

She lifted a thumb to his cheek and wiped away an errant tear that fell down towards his lips. "He's going to be okay. John, you're shaking."

A few more blinks resulted in more tears. He hated crying in front of anyone, much less the women he was dating.

"John, how are your symptoms doing?"

He's told her about the therapist and the war after two bottles of wine and he regretted saying a word to her about his problem. "I'm fine," he said.

"Should I get you something to calm you? I can have them give you a ketamine drip to calm—"

He couldn't control his tone. "I'm fine."

"John, I'm just trying—"

"Haven't you done enough?" he said.

Her face fell. "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to help."

"Don't. Don't bother."

She sat there and stared, desperately trying to formulate what to say next. He didn't want to see her anymore. She had put the gun in Sherlock's hand it was John who pulled the trigger. "Okay," she said quietly, "I'll go talk to his doctors."

John grunted as she walked away.

"Where is he?" a voice shouted from across the lobby.

He'd recognize that voice anywhere.

Mycroft was here.


	18. Chapter 18

He wanted to make a run for it. Mycroft stomped into the waiting room in cheetah like strides. His long black coat trailed behind him like a cape. John stayed as still as he could and hoped that it turned him invisible.

It took Mycroft ten seconds to spy the cowering doctor in the corner. "What happened?" he shouted.

"He has a fever. I told you that already."

"When I left," he said, "he looked fine. You said that he didn't need to go to hospital."

John felt so small as Mycroft towered above him. "His fever wasn't lowering. I didn't want to risk it going up any higher. There could be an underlying infection that I can't treat at the flat."

He was lying and Mycroft knew it. "You wouldn't have brought him just for the fever."

"Mycroft…"

"What happened?" Mycroft asked. His voice cracked as he spoke.

John couldn't look him in the eye. "He went into convulsions."

"My god."

John spoke fast to hide the truth. "He is weak and the fever was taking a toll on his body. At temps that high, it's not unusual. It wasn't long but I didn't want to take any chances. That is all that happened."

Mycroft backed a step away from John and tried to straighten his body to hide the massive worry that was attempting to take hold. "I see," he said.

"They haven't come out. I don't know anything else."

"Yes, yes." His words came out mindlessly.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes I am, John, but forgive me if I'd like to talk to someone who knows what they're talking about." He sounded scared but John didn't have any more information. He was helpless.

"They'll come out when they have information," John said.

Mycroft shot him a glare. "Where's his doctor."

"Mycroft," John said, "they're helping him inside. Just let them do their job and they'll come out soon."

After a few moments, Mycroft spun around. "It was the pills, wasn't it?"

_Shit_ , John thought. "No," he lied.

Mycroft inches closer. "Fever wouldn't cause convulsions."

"It could."

He smirked. "No. You left the pills in his room and he overdid it. It's happened before. I'm not surprised but I'm very disappointed in you, John."

"In me?" he said.

Mycroft pointed his finger towards John's chest. "I warned you. I told you to keep an eye on him and not three hours later where are we?"

"You don't think this is killing me?" John said.

"I don't really care about how this is affect you. Let me go see my brother." He started to move forward past John but, without thinking, John moved to the side and blocked him.

"Excuse you."

John couldn't end it like that. "You must talk to him. Tell him that he doesn't have to go."

"Absolutely not. The family is all here. He will attend if he is discharged."

"Mycroft…" John pleaded.

"That's enough," Mycroft said. "Now step aside."

"No." He was much shorter than Mycroft and had a fraction of the strength but he had his stubbornness to keep him standing there.

"John. Please."

Mycroft tried to go to his right and John stepped there as well. "You will tell him that he has a choice."

"Enough."

Mycroft barreled through and hit John squarely in the shoulder. He winced in pain as Mycroft strode towards the admissions counter. He wanted to feel like he'd done all he could do but he knew that was a lie.

* * *

Sarah came out a few minutes later. He gripped the seat to keep from shaking from the adrenaline that pounded through his system. She had perfected the neutral facial expressions of a surgeon who had spent years delivering difficult news. From across the room he couldn't tell whether it was a good or bad prognosis.

"What is it?" he asked as she got closer. His breath was held tight against his chest.

"He's fine," she said. "The fever's down to 101 and they did a CT and it showed nothing abnormal. They think it was a combination of the fever and the sedatives plus there was very little in his system so it was just asking for trouble. They're hydrating him now and they'll have him eat in a few hours to get his strength up."

The waves of relief rolled off of his body and crashed to the ground. He felt thirty pounds lighter as she spoke. The tears crept up his chest and he couldn't control it anymore.

"John…" she said sweetly. "It's okay. He's okay."

He wiped them away with the side of his sleeve. "I know," he said. "I was just…"

She grabbed him and pulled him in tight. "I know," she said as they embraced. "I know."

 


	19. Chapter 19

They were mid-embrace when John saw Mycroft coming back down the hallway with a Ziploc bag in his hand.

"Where is Sarah Sawyer?" he shouted.

He felt her hands released from his body as she stepped back and into the line of fire. "Yes?" she said.

Mycroft's brow lowered as he held the bag up towards her face. "Is this your idea?"

It was the pill bottle with her name as the doctor of note on the label. "Well yes…"

"Why did you prescribe him Valium? Can you explain yourself?"

She bowed her head and John debated stepping in but he knew that he word meant next to nothing to Mycroft. "He wasn't sleeping. It seemed logical to give him assistance as to prevent any further progression of any underlying illness due to the trauma."

"Trauma? What trauma?" Mycroft asked.

"His grief," she said. "He wasn't coping and that can suppress the immune system. It's a dangerous period and it was critical that he go about a normal daily routine which he was not."

Mycroft towered over Sarah by over a foot. She stood her ground but John could see that she was terrified. "Did you exam him? Did you take a history?"

"Well no."

"He has a history of narcotic abuse. He has a history of overdose. He does not handle stress well, Ms. Sawyer, and that's why we have gone to great lengths to keep temptations like Valium far from his reach."

"Mr. Holmes," she said, "I understand. But the medication did not cause his convulsions. It was his fever, which could have been much worse had he not had the rest that he received  _from_ the medications."

Mycroft shook his head. "No," he said, "they found twice the dosage in his system. You explain to me how that does not affect him negatively."

John stepped in. "Mycroft, it wasn't her fault. I brought the pills home."

"I will speak to you later. Ms. Sawyer," he said as he turned towards Sarah, "you will be hearing from me soon. This is gross negligence and I will not stand for it."

"Mycroft…" John said.

He turned on his heels and walked away. Sarah stood, stunned.

"Sarah, I'll talk to him."

She shook her head. "No, he's right. I should've examined him first. That was unprofessional."

"You have to be kidding. I practically begged you to do it."

"It was my idea," she said. "It was completely my idea."

She backed away with a stunned strained slide to her step. "Sarah, let me help you."

"No," she said, "I have to deal with this myself. I'll call you."

* * *

John's shoulder ached from Mycroft's unwarranted act of aggression. The throbs that radiated down his arm were nothing compared to the knots that tightened in his gut. He sat in the waiting room, alone, for another hour before the nurse came out.

"Dr. Watson?" she said.

His eyes flicked up from the magazine that he'd been holding for the last forty minutes but hadn't read one word from. "Yes?"

"You can go in."

He didn't know what to expect but he knew that he needed to see Sherlock. "Thank you," he said as he threw the magazine back on the pile and rose to his feet.

* * *

Sherlock was propped up by three pillows and was in a nearly vertical position. An IV hung from above his head and dripped a clear solution into his arm. His color had returned and the heavy bags under his eyes had faded.

"Hello," he said as he walked into the room.

There was a palpable awkward tension in the room that even Sherlock seemed aware of. "Hello," Sherlock said.

John stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked cautiously into the room. "Your fever's down. That's good."

Sherlock nodded.

"How are feeling?"

Sherlock's eyes flitted everywhere in the room but at John. "Mycroft came in, did he not?"

"Oh, yes, I think so."

There were few people in the world that Sherlock was afraid of but it was clear that Mycroft was one of those people. "Does he know about the pills?"

John was done lying. "Yes. He took the bottle."

"You didn't write the script, did you?"

"No," he said, "Sarah did. He seemed awfully angry."

Sherlock nodded. "I imagine he was. He will lose interest. There is nothing to worry about."

"I don't know," John said, "he was furious."

"He's furious quite often. This will pass. Tell Sarah will you?"

John nodded. "Did they say when you'd be released?"

"The nurse said Friday. They're keeping me overnight." He looked as if he was being sentenced to life in prison.

"Well that's not surprising. You had quite the fever."

Sherlock shifted the IV's out of the way so he could sit up completely. "Did they find the woman?"

"The woman?"

"The receipt. Remember?"

It felt like it had been years since their trip to the crime scene. "I have no idea. I haven't had a chance to ask."

"Let me have your mobile," he said as he put out his hand. "I need to call Lestrade."

Old Sherlock. It was oddly comforting. "Not now. I'll call him later and report back. How about that?"

He knew it killed Sherlock to have to take a backseat but it was for his own good. Compounding his stress with work was not what he needed right now. "I suppose," he said reluctantly.

* * *

John left the room with a sense of comfort. The world outside swirled but in that room, with Sherlock, he was in the eye of the storm. With Sherlock, he could move mountains. Together they'd get through this one way or another.

He walked down the hallway with a lighter step. As he turned to exit the hospital he heard his name.

"John Watson?"

It was a sweet voice, feminine but unsure.

He turned to spot where it was coming from. It took him a moment to recall who it was but it didn't take long to recognize the sharp Holmes features. Sherlock's Aunt Donna.

"Can I speak to you?"

He didn't know what to expect but if there was a chance of helping this family he knew he should take it.

"Of course. Let's talk outside."

 


	20. Chapter 20

She wasn't the usual Holmes archetype. While her face had all the sharp angles to be part of Sherlock's family, there was a certain softness to her smile that made him think that he had a normal rational person to talk to.

"Donna, right?"

"Yes," she said, "and Mycroft doesn't know that I'm here. He can't know."

"Oh I see," John said. "Why is that?"

"He's been trying to control all the arrangements for my sister. It was wonderful at first since Marie and I were not available to do all the phone calls and don't have the funds that he has. But now…"

"You want some say."

She nodded as she dabbed at her eyes. "Evelyn was a good mom. Patient as they come but Sherlock is right. I spoke with her after our father passed. What Roger, that's their father, arranged for little Bernadette was far too much. She smiled through all of it but it hurt her to have such a commotion. They are a private family and she knew that about her boys. She didn't want to put them through all the show again."

He knew exactly what she meant. "Their father?"

"Small gathering. I was there was with my son. About 10 of us in the house. We paid our respects and let Evelyn alone with the boys. It's what they needed and it wasn't for us to get in the way."

"When was that? He never talks about his father."

She bit her tongue as she thought. "Well Edward was about ten so about fifteen years ago, I suppose. Sherlock was in secondary school at that point."

"Well," John said, "if Mycroft is wrong then why don't you tell him?"

She dabbed away another tear. "Evelyn wanted it for Sherlock. She was always so worried about him. He was such a fragile boy, always getting bullied and picked on at school. Everything she did was to shield him from pain."

"And you think he shouldn't get his way this time?"

She nodded. "I love that boy more than anything but this time Evelyn is protecting him from getting closure. He has trouble processing this but he needs to say goodbye properly."

Everything she said sounded great to John but it didn't bring either of them any closer to what they both wanted. "He's already said that he doesn't want to go."

She nodded. "I know. I've tried too and he's very stubborn, always has been. I was talking to Mycroft and he had a bit of an offer."

"Offer?"

"That doctor, Sarah…"

"Yes? What about her."

"He told me that if Sherlock showed up to the service on Saturday then he wouldn't press charges against her. I don't quite understand what he's talking about but he said that he was going to tell you that. I thought I'd get the message to you sooner."

It was so Mycroft. Everything with him was a plan to get what he wanted. "I'll try," he said, "but I can't make any promises."

She pointed towards the hallway where Sherlock's room was located. "Is he awake? Could I go see him?"

"I think so. I just came from there. He's alert and talking."

She fiddled with the hem of her sweater. "I can't stand hospitals," she said. "There are so many nasty memories attached."

He went over and rubbed her back. "I could go with you, just in case he needs anything while you talk."

"You were just leaving. I don't want to be a bother."

He shook his head. "Absolutely not. It'd be an honor."

She smiled that crooked Holmes grin that he'd missed these last few days. Together they headed towards Sherlock's room.


	21. Chapter 21

Donna kneaded her hands together as they neared Sherlock's room. He couldn't imagine why she'd want to talk to her nephew at this point—he was bad enough when he wasn't trapped in a hospital room. Hell, John didn't put it past him to ignore or berate his aunt until she gave up and left. They were entering into a battle with an unpredictable person made even more chaotic with a locked door and IV's keeping him stuck to a bed.

A nurse came out of his room as they entered. She'd closed the blinds as the evening light filtered in which gave the room a gloomy coldness. Donna stood by the door with her fingers hovering over the handle.

"I can't," she said.

"You don't have to," John said.

"I do," she said. "For Evelyn I do. I just don't know what to say to him."

"Nobody does," John said with a smile, "but just be honest. He'll listen to what you say. Just get to the point and be blunt."

She nodded. "I'll try."

He rubbed her shoulder. "I'll help if he gets too argumentative, alright?"

She struggled to keep her smile as her eyes welled with tears. "Bless you."

"Of course," he said.

* * *

Sherlock sat up in his bed with a newspaper spread open across his outstretched legs.

"John," he said without looking up, "call Lestrade. They're implying that the woman was abducted from the exit of the parking lot. That is absolutely absurd. I leave for one day and they become a station of idiots."

"Sherlock…" John said gently.

"What?"

Donna moved closer to her nephew who had still not realized that she was in the room.

"You have a guest."

He continued to read the article with increasing frustration. "Hm?"

"Sherlock!" John said with increasing volume.

"What is it?" he said as his eyes flitted up to his aunt's figure. "Oh."

She smiled and walked closer to him in cautious steps like a handler nearing a snarling lion. "Sherlock," she said with tears in her voice.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

She put out a hand to touch his face but he backed away from her attempt at a caress. "How are you feeling?"

"Did Mycroft ask you to come in?"

"No," she said, "he didn't. I wanted to see you."

He looked past his aunt and at John. "You will call Lestrade, will you not?"

John couldn't believe his disrespect. "Sherlock. Speak to your aunt, will you?"

They shared a glance of understanding. John knew he'd rather get his shoulder dislocated that talk to his aunt but that didn't mean that he should get to avoid the conversation. As much as it pained him, it needed to happen.

"I'm so glad to see you're feeling better. I was so worried," Donna said.

"All better," he said with a snap to his voice, "nothing to get concerned about."

She smiled. "That's good to hear."

He tapped on the newspaper, which made loud crinkling noises with each motion. It was his way of pushing someone out by being so aggressively unpleasant that they left on their own accord. They got rid of quite of a few dud clients that way.

"Her body. Is it in?"

"In?" Donna asked.

Sherlock nodded. "Whatever Mycroft is doing with her. It should be delivered by now."

He spoke like they were discussing a shipment of flowers. Donna looked genuinely frightened. "Oh I don't know. He hasn't told me much."

"Probably by now. They'll need to do the embalming shortly. He'll probably have them expedite the process if he wants her buried by Saturday, yes?"

Donna's mouth seemed frozen in a look of confused shock. "Yes, I suppose. Sherlock, why are you talking like this?"

"Like what?" he said.

"Like a child. You're talking about your mother."

He gazed back at the newspaper. "I'm aware of that."

"You're speaking about her like she's rubbish to toss away."

The look he gave was one of restrained shock. "I'm simply asking about the next steps."

Donna's cheeks blushed a dark pink. "You weren't an easy child. Your mother sacrificed everything for you and your brother. After your father passed she struggled to keep you happy. She'd call me every night, exhausted, and tell me how you were so angry and she didn't know what to do."

Sherlock's expression didn't change. "I'm aware. What purpose is it to bring up my childhood? What relevance—"

Donna came in closer. "Don't talk to me like that."

"Like what?"

"You speak to me with respect, young man. Do you understand?"

If it weren't so tense, John would have laughed. It was truly bizarre seeing Sherlock being put in his place by anyone, especially by a woman who barely came up to his shoulders.

"I am…" he said.

Donna had lost her fear. John could see the years of frustration and weariness of grief take hold. She pushed closer to Sherlock until she was practically on top of him.

"Don't you care?"

Sherlock looked at her, stunned.

"I mean really... Thirty-three years and she doesn't even warrant a kind word from her son? She'd be devastated that this is how you think of her."

Sherlock's eyes flitted back and forth.

"Are you even upset?"

He grabbed the edge of the blanket and held it tight.

Donna just stared in disbelief. Her voice was laden with tears. "She was so proud of you. There were clippings of all your cases in her study and she'd call whenever you were in the paper."

John could feel himself getting choked up. He wished that he could have met this woman.

"Please," Sherlock muttered. "Stop."

Donna grabbed his chin and lifted it up so they were looking eye to eye. "I won't stop. Not this time."

He tried to move his face from her grip but her fingers only tightened. "Your mother deserves your respect, Sherlock."

"Stop," he said.

"Look at me," she hissed.

He wouldn't.

"Look at me."

He was acting like a child, like a spoiled brat who wasn't getting his way. John wanted to go over and shake him. Of all the unimpressive things that he had done this was one of the more stellar examples.

His eyes finally focused in on her face. John could see the corners of his mouth slowly droop as he gazed into her eyes. "What do you want?" he asked.

She let her fingers loosen and eventually fall. "I want you to care," she whispered.

The lights in the room reflected in the tears that began to fill Sherlock's eyes. The words that came out of his mouth felt laden and heavy. He struggled to say them like the syllables were trapped in the back of his throat. "I do," he said.

Donna's face softened. "Sherlock, it was your mother. You're allowed to feel something. It's okay."

He turned away from her and quickly wiped his face.

She pet his arm in long soft strokes. "You don't have to be brave."

John could see he was doing everything in his power to keep it together but it was a failing enterprise. Donna moved in closer and kissed him on the top of the head. "You're a sweet boy. She was very proud."

Sherlock pulled his hand up to his face to hide it from his aunt.

Donna caressed the side of his head and cradled it against her shoulder, allowing his face to be hidden behind her sweater. "You should come with us. You'll feel better. She'd want that."

His body heaved as he sunk into her shoulder. She rubbed his back and started to cry herself. John felt like an intruder as he stood and spied from the corner.

"Will you come?" she asked quietly.

John held his breath.

After a few excruciating seconds, he nodded.

 _Thank God_ , he thought. It was a miracle.


	22. Chapter 22

Donna sat with him until his tears turned dry and he was too exhausted to put up a fight. She gave him a kiss on the top of the head and rubbed his shoulder as he lowered his head to the pillow.

John stood in against the wall, watching the whole thing, enraptured, like he was in the midst of an epic drama.

"I'm going to go," she whispered as she slowly rose from the side of the bed.

"You sure?" he asked. She had worked magic. Someone she had tapped into emotion that John didn't even realize that Sherlock even had.

She smiled sweetly. "My sister needs me. We still have some more arrangements to make. You know how it is. So many loose ends."

"Of course," he said. "I understand."

She looked back over at her nephew who lay still on the bed behind her. "He's still coping. Be gentle with him, will you?"

"Sure," he said.

She placed a hand on his arm and squeezed. "But not too gentle. Sometimes that boy needs a kick in the bottom."

"Oh I know that," John said. "Thank you for speaking to him."

"Evelyn raised a good boy. I'm doing what I can."

John sat in the chair besides Sherlock's bed until he woke. He began doing work and reading research but quickly devolved into a game of Angry Birds and taking a cat nap with his head leaning against the corner of the bed. There were a grunt and a cough that jolted him awake.

"John?" Sherlock whispered.

John blinked away the sleep and tried to gain back his bearings. "Yes?" he said.

"Is Donna still here?"

"No," John said, "she left a while back."

"I see." Sherlock fiddled with the IV in his hand.

"You look better," John said.

Sherlock nodded. "Have you spoken to Lestrade?"

John paused. "Oh no. I haven't had the chance."

The old Sherlock glare was back. "Why not?"

"I was here."

He seemed confused. "I don't understand. Why were you here?"

"I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I am okay," he said haltingly.

John leaned back. "Well I know that know. I just wanted to be sure."

He turned back towards the window. "You should call him. Tell him what I told you. Hurry. It may be too late already."

"Sherlock, please…"

"Call him up."

John sat in disbelief. There was nothing further from what he wanted to do than get intimately involved in a criminal investigation. His constitution couldn't' handle any more stress. "Fine," he said, "I'll do it."

"Good," Sherlock said as he straightened the edges of his blanket.

His eyes were still pink and puffy as were his cheeks but his glare remained in tact. Even locked up in a hospital room, Sherlock was not someone John had any interest in defying.

"Do you need anything?"

"Why would I?"

"I don't know," he said. "Like a magazine or something. Are you bored?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"Call me if you need anything."

No response.

He left the room feeling more confused than when came in.

Lestrade took the tip in stride. The newspaper article was dealing in two-day-old information that the police had long since revised. He wasn't aware of Sherlock's condition and John kept it that way.

His first stop from the hospital was to Mycroft's office. His secretary said that he was in for the rest of the day and John took a cab straight there from the ER parking lot.

Mycroft's office was located on the second floor of a spacious open layout. Important looking people milled about and spoke in hushed tones in the hallway. John stomped through the lobby and bounded the steps two at a time.

His secretary, an older woman named Nora, sat at her desk with a phone cradled against her shoulder. As he came closer she slowly lowered the receiver as she awaited his introduction. He didn't have a greeting. John walked right past her and towards the double doors that led into his office.

"Excuse me!" she shouted from behind him.

He didn't have time to be ushered away.

"Excuse me!" she shouted louder.

He reached for the knob and swung the door open. Mycroft sat at his desk with a folder propped up in front of him. Even as his uninvited guest walked in, he seemed unfazed. "John?"

John pulled his hands into a fist to keep from shouting. "Donna came," he said.

"Donna?" he said, surprised.

"Yes. And we spoke with Sherlock."

"Is that right?"

John massaged his aching shoulder and hoped that elicited a degree of guilt from Mycroft. It, of course, did not. "Yes. And he agreed to come."

"Really?"

"Yes," John said. "He agreed."

"And you're sure. You've asked him yourself."

He paused. "No. But he told Donna."

"He won't be there," Mycroft said as his eyes flittered back down to his papers.

John couldn't believe the glibness of his tone. "He will."

"No," Mycroft said, "he won't."

"How could you say that? Sherlock doesn't lie." He knew that, in itself, was a lie but it wasn't far from the truth. When it mattered, Sherlock was honest with those he trusted. He had nothing to gain from not going.

"Donna is weak and easy to fool. I'm sure he turned on the waterworks like he did as a boy and got her to walk away feeling good. I'm sure she told you about our little agreement about your doctor friend."

Mycroft seemed amused by his explanation in a way John couldn't wrap his head around. "Yes she did," he said, unsure of what his admission would mean.

"John, I'm through playing games with my brother. Our entire family will be at the church at 11. If he shows then you can tell me that I'm wrong about everything but I know my brother and I can predict his every move. I know he will not be there, no matter what he's said."

"And if he's there?" John asked.

"The charges will be dropped."

John kneaded his hands to together. "You won't really…will you?"

"I will, John. Doctors should know better. It's a nasty practice under the hood, isn't it?"

John walked out of his office feeling unsure. For so long Sherlock had been the one person that he could trust. He had no ability to shield the truth and went out of his way to be blunt and honest. In a world of well-meaning friends and concerned therapists, Sherlock had been the one light he could always depend to be on. If he couldn't trust Sherlock, then who?


	23. Chapter 23

Sherlock was discharged Thursday afternoon. John stood beside him as young patient orderly wheeled him down the hallway. It took ten minutes to get Sherlock to sit in the wheelchair and, by some miracle, he finally gave in and sat down but made it clear to the audience that he'd curated that he was no pleased about it.

There was a cab idling outside. John had slipped the driver a few extra pounds to stay there until they finally made it outside. He knew that Sherlock would not leave easily no matter how badly he wanted to get out of there.

As soon as the orderly rolled the wheelchair outside, Sherlock jumped out of the seat and onto the concrete.

John turned to the woman and smiled. "Thank you."

She couldn't get out of there fast enough. She made a 180 turn and raced back into the hospital.

Sherlock walked to the cab and swung open the door. John followed behind, still on edge after the ten-minute dissection of the orderly's personal life courtesy of an irritated Sherlock. It didn't matter that she was recently divorced or had recently taken up drinking again but he made sure to mention it. John wasn't quite sure what his motive was—if it was to dazzle her to submission then it served just the opposite purpose. Poor Gloria was more determined to get him in the chair and humiliate him to the fullest extent.

Once they were both in the cab, Sherlock pulled out his phone and began texting.

"Who are you talking to?" John asked.

"Lestrade," he said without skipping a beat. "I need to be updated on the case."

"Sherlock," John said, "you don't have time for a case."

"Have time?"

John tapped his fingers against his thigh. He hadn't had "the talk" with Sherlock since his aunt left. The talk with Mycroft had shaken him. Sherlock had been someone that he trusted implicitly and now he wasn't so sure.

"For Saturday. You should get ready."

Sherlock continued typing.

John tensed the muscles in his hand. "Did you hear me?"

"I did," Sherlock said.

"And?"

The phone made the whoosh sound of an email being sailed off into the ether. Sherlock maintained a downward glare.

"Can you answer me?"

"I haven't decided," Sherlock said.

John stared in disbelief. "You promised."

"I did nothing of the sort."

"Yes, you did. You told your aunt that you would go."

"I'm aware."

"Then you must go," John said.

Sherlock shook his had. "No."

John made a jolt towards him and caught his shoulder against the jammed seatbelt. He winced as a burst of pain radiated down his arm.

"Your shoulder?" Sherlock asked.

He rubbed it. "Yeah," John said, "Mycroft hit it yesterday. I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it. It's sore though."

"Did he?" Sherlock said.

"Yeah but it's fine."

"Hm," Sherlock muttered under his breath. "He shouldn't do that."

"Sherlock, it's fine. Let's get back on track."

His flatmate's eyes hadn't locked with his the entire trip. John wanted to snatch the phone out of his hands and force him to look over.

"I'll speak with him," Sherlock said.

"About what?" John asked, exasperated. There was nothing left to discuss. He'd foolishly hoped that this all was a done deal.

"John, please stop pleading."

"Unbelievable," he sighed.

The rest of the ride went by in complete silence.

John didn't help Sherlock up the stairs. He handed the driver the money and made a break for the door. Sherlock could find his own way up the steps. He couldn't look at him right then.

He grabbed his keys and a jacket and made a turn on his heels to leave the flat before Sherlock got up. However, at the door, Sherlock stood with his arms outstretched across the length of the frame.

"Excuse me," John said as he stood in front of his roadblock.

"Sit," Sherlock said.

John laughed. "I don't think so. I have to go."

"No you don't," Sherlock said. "Now sit."

They stood in a stand-down for thirty seconds before John gave in and turned back to the living area. He stood against the wall, deliberately avoiding the chairs.

"John, please."

"I'm fine here."

Sherlock was still uneasy on his feet and didn't have the same force and grace that John was used to. He walked over to the chairs and sat down himself. "Is Sarah in trouble?"

John didn't know how much Sherlock could know about Mycroft's blackmail. "Not right now."

"Mycroft took the bottle, I know that much. I presume he's holding off on the charges against Sarah until after the service. The aunts don't much like mixing their funerals and their legal actions."

John was tired of the two-faced comments. One second Sherlock is weeping and the next he's cracking jokes. He couldn't help a man who couldn't pin down his one feelings from moment to moment.

"Ridiculous. Can you take nothing seriously?"

"Is he threatening Sarah?"

John didn't know the right answer but his instinct told him to be honest. "Yes."

"I see," Sherlock said. "Now if it's Mycroft I suppose there's a reason that he hasn't taken action yet. It's certainly not on my behalf or the aunts."

John shoved his hands on his pocket.

"You know," Sherlock said.

He didn't answer.

"John?"

Sherlock tapped the arm of the chair with a giddy excitement. "Now why wouldn't you want to tell me?"

They sat in silence for nearly a minute as Sherlock's pain pill infected mind attempted to process the new information.

"It is about me, isn't it?" he asked.

John still didn't answer. He didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

"There's a plan. An exchange. He's always been a fan of those. It gets him what he wants with minimal effort. Now what does he want from me?" The moment the word  _me_ left his lips, Sherlock's face tensed.

John knew that he'd figured it out.

"Is that why Donna came in?" he asked.

John shrugged. "I don't know. She wanted to talk to you before all this."

He sat back in his chair.

"Sherlock, she really did want to talk to you."

He turned away from John like a cranky child.

"Now you know," John said. "Will you do it for Sarah?"

He crossed his arms tight against his chest. "He'll still press charges."

"He won't. He said he wouldn't."

Sherlock pursed his lips. "He's manipulating them. He's telling the aunts stories so they'll do what he says. It's all a play. Mycroft has no intentions of not pressing charges."

"You think so?" John said as the tension in his voice increased with each word.

"I do."

John pointed at Sherlock's phone, which sat on the table next to him. "Then call him," he said. "Tell him that you've figured this all out. See what he says."

"I know what he'll say. He lies, John."

"Why!" he shouted. "Why would he lie?"

Sherlock grabbed his phone tight in his fist. "Money. The power. He wants my mother's family to leave him the house."

"He's rich," John said. "What would he do with a little house?"

"Good question," Sherlock said. "But this is why he's playing mind games with the aunts and with you."

"Call him," John said.

"I don't need to," Sherlock said.

John stomped over and reached for the phone that was in Sherlock's hand. His grip was firm but John dug at his fingers and pried them off one by one. Sherlock didn't put up a fight as the phone was snatched from his hands. For a moment John felt remorse for his sudden aggressive but moved on as he dialed Mycroft's number and let it begin to dial. In a few seconds he heard the dulcet tone on the other end.

"Hello brother…"

"It's John," he said curtly.

"Oh. John…"

"I think Sherlock has something to ask you."

John shoved the phone towards Sherlock who, begrudgingly took it.

"Hello Mycroft…"


	24. Chapter 24

Sherlock agreed to meet Mycroft in the diner next door but only if John was allowed to come as well. He didn’t expect much from the meeting except for a pissing contest between two stubborn people.

            They made their way to the diner and arrived five minutes early in the hopes to get a booth close to the kitchen as to throw the sensitive Mycroft off. However he beat them to the punch and was already there with a table situated in an empty quiet corner.

            Mycroft didn’t bother standing as the pair took their seat. Sherlock opted to sit across from his brother and John was cramped up against the wall. It was warm in the diner but neither man was willing to make the first move to take off their coats—John anticipated quite the conversation.

            After John ordered his cup of coffee, Mycroft pulled out a plastic pill bottle and set it on the table.

            “That is not your property,” Sherlock said. “It has my name on it.”

            Mycroft’s eyebrow arched. “Oh I’m aware. However as a concerned family member I inquired further. My dear brother has a history. You can never be too safe.”

            Sherlock’s lips tightened. “I asked for them. Do not involve Ms. Sawyer.”

            “I called the clinic that our dear friend works,” Mycroft said as he gestured, but did not look, at John. “You did not have an appointment with Dr. Sawyer. In fact, you didn’t even pick up the prescription yourself.”

            John’s chest tightened. He’d picked it up. There wasn’t a way that Mycroft would…

            “I had a fever at the time. It wasn’t convenient.”

            Mycroft finally made eye contact with John. “You picked up the prescription didn’t you?”

            “Well…”

            “And you gave a known drug addict a full bottle of unnecessary sedatives for seemingly no reason. Is that true?”

            John felt backed into a corner. The Holmes had a way of seeing your next move and already planning the attack. He looked to Sherlock for guidance but there was none. “It wasn’t for no reason.”

            “It is highly dangerous and completely morally abhorrent to hand an addict such powerful medication.”

            “He was having trouble.”

            Mycroft smiled. “No.”

            “John…” Sherlock said quietly.

            “What do you mean no?” John said.

            “You were projecting. A man of your fragile mental station will see someone in the throes of a traumatic event and see themselves. Sherlock was nothing out of the ordinary. You saw what you wanted to see.”

            “That’s ludicrous,” John said. “I was there. Were you?”

            “John, shut up,” Sherlock hissed through his teeth.

            “No,” John said, “I will not. I stand by my decision.” He turned to Sherlock. “You were not sleeping. You were getting sick. You were in shock and you needed a little help. I didn’t want you have a mental breakdown because your brother wouldn’t let you grieve.”

            “Stop this,” Sherlock said.

            Mycroft gestured towards Sherlock. “See? He is not in the whirlpool of depression that you are imagining he is suffering through. Dr. Watson, you must take ownership of what you’ve done.”

            He slapped his hands on the table. “This is unbelievable. Sherlock, are you hearing this?”

            Sherlock sat still in his seat.

            “I will include you in the charge. I take my family seriously, John. I don’t care who you are, you will face the penalty.”

            John felt like he was punched in the gut. A charge like this could put his license in jeopardy. Medicine was all he knew. He couldn’t lose it over something so trivial.

            Mycroft pulled out a sheet of paper from his briefcase. “Back to mother’s property. I was speaking with the aunts and they think it best that I handle the sale of the house.”

            Sherlock nodded.

            “And the land up north. There are some buyers lined up.”

            Again he nodded.

            “Ruxton will be taken to the shelter. I don’t have the room for him.”

            Sherlock didn’t nod. His head bowed.

            “And the belongings inside will be sold or tossed. I don’t have time to go down. I’m hiring a crew to do that next week before the house is sold.”

            Sherlock shut his eyes tight. “No.”

            “Pardon?” Mycroft said.

            “I will go up.”

            “You will not,” he said.

            Sherlock pushed his chair back. “John?”

            John didn’t know what he meant but it almost seemed like they were leaving. He didn’t want to anger Mycroft any more than he already had but if anyone could outwit him, Sherlock could.

            “You don’t have time.”

            Sherlock leaned against the table and pulled himself close to Mycroft. “I will be at your service but only because of your insipid deal, understand?”

            “That’s all I every wanted,” Mycroft said with a devious smile.

            They walked out of the diner with John’s coffee still steaming.

* * *

 

            “Are you serious?” John asked as they stood in front of their building.

            “Of course I am,” Sherlock said.

            “But how?”

            “How what?”

            Sherlock pulled out a set of keys from his pocket.

            “How are we getting there?”

            He wiggled the metal in his hand. “My car.”

            John looked at him, confused. “You don’t have a car.”

            Sherlock clicked the security button and a white sedan beeped from across the street. “Of course I do,” he said. “Let’s go.”


	25. Chapter 25

They didn’t pack any clothes or grab a toothbrush for the trip. Sherlock insisted John get inside and they were off for the three-hour drive to his family’s house up north.

            Sherlock drove quickly through the country roads leading up to the house. Most of the way was the two of them sitting in silence as John attempted to piece together what they would be doing once they got there.

            “Do you want me to drive?” John asked.

            Sherlock shook his head.

            “Okay, well can you at least tell me what’s going on?”

            He veered around a corner and entered another stretch of bright green grass and wooden farmhouses. “I need to pick up a few things.”

            “Mycroft wouldn’t just toss everything.”

            Sherlock looked over with a look that made it clear that Mycroft absolutely would. “There isn’t a lot left of mine left there. I took most of it with me when I moved to London.”

            They drove over a covered bridge and down one more long stretch of trees and sheep before Sherlock spoke again.

            “We’re almost there. You will stay in the car while I gather my things.”

            John laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m going in.”

            “No you are not.”

            “Yes,” he said, “I am. Try to stop me.”

            Sherlock scowled but continued driving. It would take a lot more than a pouty face to keep John from seeing the house Sherlock grew up in. 

* * *

 

            It took almost four hours but they made it to 91 Chester Lane with Sherlock only getting lost five times…admitting to none. John marveled at the simplicity of the home. He wasn’t sure what he imagined the Holmes house to look like but in his mind it was magnificent, sterile and set apart from the world.

            The house they arrived at was small on the outside and surrounded by a menagerie of fruit trees and bright flowers. There was a path lined with white and pink lilies and apple trees blossomed with red fruit that was yearning to be picked. The front door was painted a soft copper red and had a handmade wooden sign across the front that read  _Home Sweet Home_. The domesticity of the outside was so charming and to see Sherlock pasted on top of it tickled John as they walked towards the inside.

            Sherlock pulled a key from his pocket.

            “You brought a key?”

            “Of course.”

            “But how did you know you would need it? We didn’t go back to the flat.” Sherlock did have an answer. He didn’t need one. “Nevermind,” John said.

            Sherlock unlocked the door and pushed it open.

            He walked straight inside and made a harsh left. John chose to the linger and take it all in. Immediately he noticed the sheer amount of pastel and knick knacks in the foyer. Every tabletop had an angel figurine or a tiny peach pot filled with beads and shells. The wall was lined with photos of her family which each picture highlighted in finely polished silver frames.

            John started at the beginning and saw a tiny Mycroft in a sailor suit with a neutral, almost serious expression. He had to laugh.  _Some things never change_ , he thought. A lanky man in a suit was holding Mycroft, as a toddler. The man was just as stern and they made a terrific pair. Neither appeared to want to be in the picture. The next one, however, was a candid shot of the two of them in a study, both of them deeply reading with a beam of sunlight filtering in through the window.

            Then another baby showed up. John immediately recognized the piercing blue eyes. Sherlock was a smiling child with a mysterious look in his eye as he held tight to a toy car. The next photo was a family shot. The father had his hand nervously held on his wife’s shoulder. Mycroft, at about five years old, stood in front of his father with a tie on and his arms held tight against his chest. Sherlock, at about two, stood against his mother’s legs and seemed delighted.

            It was bizarre to watch the decline of Sherlock’s smile as the years went on. What began as a deliriously happy child deteriorated to photos where he was with his brother and they shared grimaces. What he didn’t see, until halfway down the journey, was a little sister. Then, the shift made sense.

            Bernie looked like an entirely different species than her brothers. She was blonde with bright green eyes and a smile that burst through the frame. John could almost hear her laughing.

            The only photo of Bernie was of the three children sitting on a piano bench in the living room of the home. Mycroft, at that point a young adult, sat at the end and seemed bored. Sherlock, however, had his arm wrapped around his sister and hers around him. They were both smiling and it was heartbreakingly genuine. There was something about this girl that brought out something so buried and distant in Sherlock. After Bernie, the photos grew darker and Sherlock’s smile was gone.

            His mother, however, seemed to try the best she could. There was something Bernie-like in her open body language. In every photo she had her arm around sons and her head tilted towards them as she brought them close.

            John felt himself feel so sad for his friend. He knew that Sherlock had limitations emotionally and they had been stunted and beaten by his childhood. There was a happy person that had a brief chance to live in his skin. He’d been able to live life where he wasn’t mocked and chided and women who cherished him embraced his quirks and now they both were seized away from him. His mother looked like a loving person who saw through the stubborn exterior of her son. John had to wonder what kind of person Sherlock would have been if he hadn’t those women.

            He walked down the foyer and saw a door open a crack. Sherlock was far in the back of the house and wouldn’t be watching his every step. John slowly opened the door and saw that it led into Mrs. Holmes’ room. He felt dirty for walking in but the curiosity took hold and commanded him inside.

            She was immaculately neat. While the room was stuffed with photos and keepsakes it was organized within an inch of its life. He walked inside and gazed at the diplomas on the wall, the childhood art framed in the corner and a wedding picture hung next to the vanity mirror. John was taken aback by how much Sherlock resembled his father back then. It was the same mop of curly dark hair, the lanky tall frame and the stare that could wither plants.

            Sitting on the edge of the vanity was a leather bound book with papers sticking out of it. There were post-its sticking out on the edges like she had been referring to it consistently. He didn’t want to invade her privacy, he really didn’t, but he couldn’t help himself.

            When he opened the book he immediately saw himself glued on the first page.

             _Holmes solves another! Murderer caught in 24 hours!_ And under the headline was a photo of the two of them at a press conference as Lestrade spoke.

            The pages were filled with clippings. They dated almost ten years. Every case, every mention, was in there. She didn’t miss a crime.

            As John put the book down he felt a sense of grief wash over him. This woman cared about Sherlock, really cared, like no one else in the world.

            “What a woman,” he whispered as he petted the cover of the book with his fingertips. “You did good, Mrs. Holmes,” he said with a smile.

            


	26. Chapter 26

He couldn’t take much more. The house was simultaneously comfortable and sterile. There was a glut of family memorabilia plastered on every open surface but the reaction the people that they dedicated her mental and emotional energy to couldn’t muster so much as a genuine tear at her passing. The woman who probably wept every night over worry about her son or raising two boys who were so distant, didn’t even get the love back to her in kind. It made him sad to think that she wouldn’t know how much her children loved her.

            “Sherlock?” he said.

            Of course there was no answer. He rarely expected it—social graces were not something that Sherlock bothered with most of the time.

            John walked quickly through the small house and peeked into each room quickly to find his friend.

            Kitchen, no.

            Dining room, no.

            Spare bedroom, no.

            He got to the last room he hadn’t checked and saw Sherlock sitting on the bed with his eyes transfixed on a notebook that sat on his lap.

            The room was essentially a shrine to the child that Sherlock had to have been. The walls were nearly bare but for a few reference materials like an periodic table and torn out bits of the encyclopedia that were push-pinned into the wall. The shelves were stuffed with books that had grown a fine layer of dust. His desk was meticulously organized and his schoolbooks are were still stacked at the corner, ready to be used.

            “Did you hear me?”

            Again nothing.

            John couldn’t help but wonder why this room had been spared. Mycroft’s room, or what he guessed used to be Mycroft’s room, had been stripped and made into a generic guest room without a trace of personality or history. But the curtains, wallpaper, posters all remained in this room. It was like it had been sealed and preserved for historical purposes.

            He walked in and circled around the bed so he stood behind Sherlock. As he got to the far end of the room, he bumped into a nightstand next to the bed. A frame wobbled and then tipped onto its front. The moment it made contact with the hardwood, he knew that he had broken it.

            “Shit,” he muttered as he picked it back up and surveyed the damage.

            Sherlock’s head snapped around. He placed the book aside and crawled across the bed.

            “I’m sorry,” John said as he surveyed the damage. The glass was cracked and spidering. The corner of the wooden frame was knocked out of alignment. Underneath the web of glass he could see a small child and a woman in the photograph.

            Sherlock grabbed the frame out of John’s hands. The quick swipe caused a shard to scratch the inside of John’s palm.

            “Hey!” he said as he held his palm to keep it from bleeding on the bedsheet.

            No answer. There was a cut that bubbled with blood from his hand.

            He grabbed a napkin from his pocket and pressed it against his cut. Sherlock had taken the photo and placed it next to him. His back was turned to John as he looked back in the book.

            “Sherlock?”

            “John,” Sherlock said quietly, “please leave.”

            “I said I was sorry.”

            His shoulders drooped. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

            “Fine,” he said. “Whatever you want.”

            “Thank you,” Sherlock muttered.

            _Thank you?_ John hadn’t heard Sherlock mutter a hint of gratitude since the time he forced him to thank a victim’s daughter after she gave him a homemade card after he solved the case.

            He resisted the omnipresent question of _Are you alright?_ since he knew the answer was no. There was no chance that he handling this well, no matter how hard he tried. John didn’t want to leave. He wanted to help. He wanted to learn how could he get Sherlock through this pain. There was no way he could go through another week, another month, another year, of the anxiety and deceit.

            As he walked to the door he heard his therapist’s voice. It was so clear, it was like she was standing in the room with him. Suddenly he was back in that room with her, sitting across from her kind face as they both sat stiffly on leather chairs.

            It was after he said that he didn’t speak to his family about his injury. When she pressed, John admitted that no one besides the people in his unit knew what had happened to him and that was the way he wanted to keep it. She leaned in and said he had to open up and tell one person. John refused. He didn’t want that story retold because he didn’t want to think about it again. She argued that he already did. He already saw that gunman come at him every night. In his dreams he saw the gunman’s eyes as raised the shotgun and held it up to John’s head. He could feel the metal as it pressed against his temple and he felt the utter helplessness as he knew there was nothing he could do to stop that man from killing him.

            The only way he would be able to move on is to gain support. He would need to find someone to tell. He needed to open up no matter how hard it was for him to utter a word of his story to others.

            “Sherlock,” he said as he walked back into the room.

            “I thought I asked you to leave.”

            Sherlock’s head was bowed and he flipped the pages of the book as John spoke.

            “I know. But I think you need to talk.”

            “I don’t _need to talk_. I don’t have much time. Go.”

            John wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

            “What are you reading?”

            Nothing.

            John sits on the bed next to Sherlock. The only thing separating them is the shattered frame between them. “Is that your handwriting?”

            Sherlock buries his head closer to the book and tries to shift his body to block John’s view.

            From what he can see, it looks like a journal. There are small pictures, photos and childish scrawls throughout the pages. He remembered Donna mentioning these notebooks. It was Sherlock’s connection to his mother.

            “How many of those do you have?”

            Sherlock’s body tensed even more as he practically bent at a 90 degree angle to block out John.

            “C’mon. Why won’t you talk to me?”

            Sherlock shut the book with a bang and began to stand. John grabbed his arm and pushed him back onto the bed. He tried to stand again and John repeated the process.

            “Stop,” Sherlock hissed.

            “No. You are going to talk to me. I sat in the car for hours.”

            “So?”

            “You need to talk. Or you will lose your mind.”

            He shook his head.

            John pointed to the book. “Tell me one thing and I’ll leave you alone.”

            Sherlock stared at the cover. The silence in the room seemed to swirl around them and threaten to suffocate them both. John hated doing this. It was everything that he’d resisted in his own life. If it was hard for him to face the truth, he could only imagine the stress going on in Sherlock’s mind.

            Sherlock put the book aside and got up from the bed. John couldn’t give up, not now.

            He raced to the door and barricaded himself in front of it. With his arms and legs outstretched, John felt ridiculous and exposed. Sherlock stood with a defeated expression. “Please,” he sighed.

            John shook his head.

            “John.”

            “No.”

            Sherlock pulled at John’s arm to try to get one side free. With all his strength focused, he stood his ground.

            “Just sit down,” John said.

            Sherlock paused for a moment. Then John could see the frustration build up in his body as he made another lunge for John.

            “Move,” he said through gritted teeth.

            Sherlock’s nails dug into John’s hand as he desperately tried to pry it off the door.

            “Sherlock!” John shouted. “Stop this!”

            “No,” he said as he wrenched John’s hand from the frame.

            John still had most of the door covered and Sherlock’s attempt to turn the knob was thwarted as John pushed him back with his no free arm.

            As his heart started the race, John couldn’t stop the adrenaline as it coursed through his body. Suddenly he heard everything. The shouts, the cries, the gasps as people died at his feet. The shot rang out and he felt the bullet wrench through his shoulder. All at once he felt everything and it was like he was dying all over again. As he looked up, he saw the face. It was the desperate hopeless look of a man who had nothing left to lose. As Sherlock lunged at him again John’s training kicked in.

            Without thinking, he kicked his leg up and landed it square in Sherlock’s thigh, above the knee. Immediately he bent down in shock and pain and exposed his back. He raised his elbow and jammed it into his back and Sherlock fell to the ground in a heap. John raised his foot, ready to make sure his combatant was down. It was training. That was what he was supposed to do.

            All he felt was the fear.

            “John…”

            Sherlock muttered from the floor.

            John’s heartbeat so fast he couldn’t see straight. The walls of the tent began to fade and the bodies of his soldiers started to disappear. Suddenly he was back in the house and his friend was on the ground.


	27. Chapter 27

The first thought was that he’d killed him.

            “Sherlock?”

            When there was no answer he felt like he was going to pass out. John fell to the ground and knelt beside Sherlock. There was a bruise forming on his temple where his head hit the ground and his mouth was open and slack.

            The adrenaline still tried to take him away. It was so hard to stay focused. All he wanted to do was run away. It was so hard to breathe.

            “Sherlock?” he said as he shook his friend.

            After an agonizing few second Sherlock groaned.

            “Thank God,” John said.

            Sherlock tried to get up but after a feeble attempt at righting himself he fell  back on the floor.

            “Are you okay?”

            He groaned again. “My stomach…”

            John winced at what he may have done. “Okay. I’m going to turn you over and take a look. It might hurt a little but just bear with me.”

            He put one arm on the shoulder and another on his back and slowly rotated him around. He unbuttoned his shirt and prayed he didn’t see anything alarming. With bated breath he revealed Sherlock’s abdomen.

            Nothing.

            “Good, good,” he whispered.

            “What?” Sherlock said.

            “Nothing. Let me test for any breaks. Tell me if any of this hurts.”

            He pressed down across the lengths of the rib cage. Three presses in, Sherlock yelped in pain.

            “There?”

            “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth.

            “You have a broken rib. Maybe two. When we get back I’m going to need to take an X-Ray.”

            Sherlock nodded weakly as he opened his eyes. He didn’t bother trying to sit up or even move from his spot on the floor.

            John backed away and laid his back against the wall. He stuffed his hands deep in his pockets and forced himself to breathe. As hard as he tried the feeling that had to get out of the room kept creeping up through his veins. He pushed himself hard into the corner and tried to focus on something, anything, to keep him in England and not in Afghanistan.

            _You’re safe._

He banged his head backwards until it made contact with the wall. The pain thudded through his system and, momentarily, stopped the endless thoughts.   

            _Just stop. Nothing’s happening._

            He shut his eyes as tight as they’d go and banged his head again, this time even harder. With each hit the tent began to disappear and the screams started to fade.

            He grabbed his calves and squeezed.

            _Stop. Please._

Then he felt something against his foot.

            He opened an eye.

            There was a hand on his shoe. Sherlock wasn’t where he’d left him. He’d moved almost three feet across the room and stretched his arm out as far as it would go. His fingers wrapped around John’s shoe and he squeezed. His eyes weren’t open and there wasn’t a word that needed to be spoken. Immediately he was out of the combat zone. He was back.

 

            They stayed in that bedroom for almost twenty minutes without speaking. As John’s heart rate lowered and he could gain perspective on what had just happened the guilt and horror took over. Even if Sherlock forgave him, it frightened him to think that he was capable of such violence.

            Sherlock made the first move. He took a deep breath and hoisted himself up to a seated position. He winced as his weight shifted to the side with the broken ribs.

            “Are you alright?” he asked.

            John didn’t want to look him in the eye. “Yes,” he said.

            He didn’t bother standing up. John knew that he would have trouble getting up without excruciating pain and even Sherlock wasn’t that stubborn. “I’m sorry,” John said.

            Sherlock shook his head. “I understand.”

            “We should go.”

            He didn’t answer.

            John didn’t have the energy to ask again. He stayed against the wall.

            “You’re right,” Sherlock said.

            “Hm?”

            “I’m…I’m not…”

            “It’s fine. You don’t have to—”

            “This house. I lived here for eighteen years. And he wants to sell it sight unseen. What about all there things?”

            John shrugged. “Would he put them in storage?”

            Sherlock shook his head. “He’d toss them. Every last thing.”

            “Terrible.”

            Sherlock angled his body, to great pain on his part, and grabbed the book that he’d discarded on the bed. He slid it across the floor and it landed a few inches in front of John.

            “Can I?” he asked.

            Sherlock nodded.

            John opened the pages of the journal. Inside the front cover was scrawled in colored pencil: _Sherlock Invesstagashins #4._ He opened to the first few pages which were filled with beautiful drawn pictures of leaves and small bugs. On one of the pages was a portrait of a red and green beetle with squiggles that ran down its back. Sherlock had labeled that one the _Holiday Beetle_.

            A few pages in housed a stack of photographs that had been stuffed into the pages.

            At first they were just pictures of the trees or a root that had grown out from under the soil. Then a woman dressed in all black with a purple scarf wrapped around her neck and ponytail perched high atop her head showed up in the photos. In one she posed in front of a yellow bush. In another she gestures to a spiral notch in a tree trunk. Then, the last picture, is of the two of them together. Their faces are squished close and the camera is at an angle as they held it out at arms distance and prayed for a shot. His mother’s excitement at her son’s happiness showed through the photo. Little Sherlock, no more than six or seven, had a big toothy grin as he rested his head against his mother’s cheek.

            “Everyday,” Sherlock said, “after dinner we went out. She taught me everything she knew about nature which wasn’t much at first. My father made her quit university in order to get married and she abandoned her studies. But after we began the hikes she’d borrow books from the library and read up on the local birds and insects.”

            “That’s nice,” John said.

            “I filled up 59 notebooks. They’re all in the closet. Mycroft used to be so jealous. All Father did with him was debate politics.”

            John closed the book and handed it back to Sherlock.

            “Father made us stop when I was ten years old.”

            “Why?”

            Sherlock shrugged. “He said it was so I could focus on my studies. I was an exceptional student and I didn’t believe him but there was no arguing with Father.”

            “I’m sorry,” John said.

            “She’d bring the books to my room and show me the newest specimen that she’d found that afternoon while I was at school. Father thought we were studying but she knew that I was far ahead of my classmates. When I grew tired of plants she brought out the crime books that she had inherited from her own mother. I had a stack as tall as I was of books and she’d read them quickly while I was gone so we could discuss them.”

            He was speechless. The lengths that this woman went to were mind-blowing.

            Sherlock tilted his head back. “She called the night before…”

            “Yeah?”

            “She saw your blog. The write-up about the drowning.”

            “She read the blog?” he asked.

            Sherlock replied, “Of course. She quite enjoyed it.”

            “Really?” John said. “That’s wonderful.”

            “She wanted to come to the station. Lestrade had approved her to assist on a low-level crime alongside us.” His voice began to break as he spoke.

            “Yeah?”

            He nodded as he pet the book. “He can’t sell this.”

            “Sell what?”

            “The house,” he said. “He can’t.”

            The tears welled up in Sherlock’s eyes. “Can you stop him?”

            He shook his head.

            “You? You can figure something out.”

            He bowed his head, deflated. “I can’t.”

            “Of course you can. This is as much your home as his.”

            “He put my dog in the shelter. He has realtors.” Sherlock covered his face with his hand.

            “We’ll get your dog. We can stop this.”

            His whole body said no. “John…” he whimpered.

            “What?”

            His voice was muffled but the words were clear. “I miss her,” he said.

            John got to his feet and walked over to his friend. He knelt beside him and put a cautious hand around his back and squeezed. “I know,” he said.

            Sherlock rested his head against John’s          shoulder. His tears fell onto John’s sweater and splattered in little raindrops.

            “I know,” he said.


	28. Chapter 28

**Final Chapter! Oh man, this has been so much fun to do! Thank you EVERYONE for your support. I'm definitely going to write something else but enjoy the final installment!**

* * *

"Are you almost ready?"

John pulled the tie up to his neck and buttoned his jacket closed.

"Just about."

He checked his watch. The service was in 20 minutes. "Hurry!"

They'd gotten back four hours ago and both of them were completely exhausted physically and mentally. Sherlock decided to power through the service with his broken ribs and get checked out afterwards. John promised he'd go back to his therapist and actually fill his prescription this time around. He could never had another incident like that again.

He didn't think that they'd make it back in time. After their fight, Sherlock and John sat on the ground and just stayed there in silence. They both cried, they both talked, they both listened. John finally told Sherlock what had happened in Afghanistan and Sherlock told John stories about his mother. It was a somber conversation with not a lot of back and forth. Mostly it was vomiting words out to the ether just to release them from their bodies. They were toxic and killing them both and just speaking them seemed to help.

At six in the morning they finally got up and went to the animal shelter that Mycroft had taken Ruxton. It turned out that little Ruxton was a twelve year old cocker spaniel that had one good eye and a squeaky bark. The moment it saw Sherlock it started jumping up and down and panting. He'd never seen his friend so happy as he was petting that dog. They brought it in the car the whole way and Sherlock didn't stop holding it the whole time.

Mrs. Hudson appeared at the doorway to the flat. She had a somber expression that quickly shifted as the bouncing dog came running towards her.

"Oh my!" she said as she bent down to pet it. "Where did he come from?"

"It's Sherlock's from when he was a kid. Don't worry, we're trying to find a place for him."

She was in love with his drooping little face. "Oh bother. He's so darling. Aren't you?" she said as she rubbed its head. It nipped at her feet and nuzzled its head against her leg.

"Thanks for coming," John said.

Mrs. Hudson smiled. "Oh darling, of course. I've known her for a number of years. It's only right. How is he doing?" She whispered that last part.

John shrugged. "Up and down. It was a long night but I think he's alright."

Sherlock walked out of his bedroom with a black suit and a navy tie. He had his hair moussed down and he was wearing something resembling aftershave. John had never seen him so dressed up.

"Ready?" John said.

Sherlock didn't answer but moved towards the door. He fiddled with something in his pocket as he went for the exit. Ruxton wouldn't let him get out without a fight. He jumped up on Sherlock's leg and barked excitedly. Sherlock had a slight grin as he rustled with the dog's head and stood behind Mrs. Hudson.

"You look so handsome," she said as she patted him on the cheek.

Sherlock looked at her with the sheepish gaze of an embarrassed boy around his grandmother. "Thank you," he said.

Mrs. Hudson grabbed him and brought him in close for a hug. She whispered something in his ear and her eyes began to water. Sherlock gave her a quick squeeze and backed away before he got any more ensnared in her emotional turmoil.

"John?" he said.

John grabbed his keys and headed towards the door.

* * *

There wasn't much of a turnout at the church. The Holmes family was little to speak of, just a few somber looking relatives that sat in the back. In the front of the pews were Mycroft, the aunts, Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson and John at the end for moral support. At the front of the church was the maple casket. It was a dark wood, ultra elegant and classy. To the side of the casket was a framed portrait of Evelyn Holmes in a black dress and bright shining pearls. She had big smile on her face and friendly eyes that seemed to be laughing through the photo.

The organ music cued up a solemn chorus as the priest walked to the front of the pew and bowed his head. John had made the decision to sit in between Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock as to avoid the never-ending gestures of comfort that she'd extend to Sherlock. He needed his hand held like a he needed a bullet in the head.

Sherlock bowed his head with the rest of the audience as the priest gave a brief overview of Evelyn's life. Mycroft had flown in her friend, the local priest from their hometown, to do the service. He was an older man, in his eighties, and spoke with a light voice as he talked about the kind and generous Evelyn that he'd known for almost twenty years.

Mycroft was the first to speak. He was supposed to say a few words about his mother and read an excerpt from her favorite book, at least according to the program.

He was dressed as he normally was, in a tailored suit and slicked-down hair. He had a stony expression as he walked to the front and laid a small stack of index cards in front of him.

"My mother was a good woman as many of you know. I remember when Bernie, our sister," he pointed towards Sherlock, "was ill. She never made us feel scared or anxious. Mother was always making sure that the two of us never had to feel the sorrow that she felt about her daughter's illness."

John couldn't help but notice that Mycroft wasn't looking at the cards. He seemed to be rambling. It was strange to see him speak about anything so personal in front of so many people.

"When she passed, I was away at school and I got the phone call from her after my English class. I remember my mate handed me the phone and her voice was so…"

He had never felt more unnerved by a man talking. Mycroft was clearly drunk and hadn't even looked at his cards. This story was coming out of nowhere and he was not ready to say it.

Mycroft stood in front of the people and looked up with tears in his eyes. The words would not come. He stared at his cards and was speechless.

John wanted to rescue him. He wanted to be the one to shuttle him off so he could cry in peace but he was beat to it.

Sherlock got to his feet and walked to the front of the church. He stood in front of Mycroft and gripped his arm. They exchanged a few words and Mycroft nodded and walked away from the front and back to sit next to his aunts. They immediately put out their hands and grabbed his as he whimpered into a handkerchief one of them pulled out from their purse.

"Hello," Sherlock said as he adjusted the microphone and pulled a sheet of paper out from his pocket. "Thank you for coming today."

John sat back and watched in anticipation for a train wreck.

"My mother always loved poetry. For hours, she and I would read books of poetry in my bedroom long after everyone else had fallen asleep. It was her that taught me to read and when I began primary school I had already read over fifty titles. Her favorite was an 800-page tome of poetry that her own mother had given to her as a girl. Her challenge to me each morning was to pick a poem to read and, throughout the day, I was to memorize it. If I could tell it back to her without error by dinner time I was given extra dessert."

The crowd laughed. John's grip on the program loosened as the tension in the room lowered with each passing word.

"I memorized nearly one thousand poems by the time I left home for secondary school. She used to tell me that every poem was her favorite and she would smile every time she heard me recite one. However, she did have one that she loved above all others.

'A Late Walk' by Robert Frost

When I go up through the mowing field,  
The headless aftermath,  
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,  
Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,  
The whir of sober birds  
Up from the tangle of withered weeds  
Is sadder than any words

A tree beside the wall stands bare,  
But a leaf that lingered brown,  
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,  
Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth  
By picking the faded blue  
Of the last remaining aster flower  
To carry again to you.'"

Sherlock spoke slowly and deeply, letting each word marinate and float over the people listening. It was like he'd said the poem one hundred times and he knew which beats to hit. John felt himself get choked up as Sherlock spoke and made sure to dab the tears from his eyes before he was caught.

"I am the person I am today because of Evelyn Holmes. Thank you Mother for everything you've done."

He bowed his head and, on his way back, he let his hand run down the casket's head before sitting down.

John wanted to say something but it was so silent that everyone'd hear him. Instead, he just looked over at his friend and caught his eye. With a simple nod of his head he conveyed  _I'm proud of you_ and with tears in his eyes and a sad smile Sherlock nodded back.

 _Thank you for making me do this_ , it said,  _and I'm sorry_.

 _No need_ , John thought.

_No need._


End file.
